Understanding media

Understanding Media The Extensions of Man

Marshall M c L u h a n Introduction

by Lewis H. Lapham

T h e M I T Press C a m b r i d g e , Massachusetts L o n d o n , England

First M I T Press edition, 1994 © 1964, 1994 Corinne McLuhan Introduction © 1994 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. N o part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or infomation storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. T h i s book was printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McLuhan, Marshall, 1911Understanding media : the extensions of man / Marshall M c L u h a n . — 1st M I T Press ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. I S B N 0-262-63159-8 1. Mass media. 2. Communication. 3. Communication and technology. I. Title. I I . Title: Extensions of man. P90.M26 1994 302.23—dc20 94-27722 CIP T h e author wishes to thank the publishers of the Times Literary Supplement for granting him permission to reprint the editorial of July 19, 1963, which appears as the chapter on T h e Printed Word in this book. Special acknowledgments are due to the National Association of Educational Broadcasters and the U . S . Office of Education, who in 1959-1960 provided liberal aid to enable the author to pursue research in the media of communication.

20 1918171615 14 131211

ContCntS

Introduction to the M I T Press Edition Lewis H. Lapham

ix

Parti Introduction

3

1 T h e M e d i u m Is the Message 2 Media H o t and Cold

7

22

3 Reversal of the Overheated Medium 33 4 T h e Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis 41 5 H y b r i d Energy: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 48 6 Media as Translators

56

7 Challenge and Collapse: T h e Nemesis of Creativity 62

v

v i / Contents

Part II 8 T h e Spoken W o r d : Flower of Evil?

77

9 T h e W r i t t e n W o r d : A n Eye for an Ear 81 10 Roads and Paper Routes

89

11 N u m b e r : Profile of the C r o w d

106

12 Clothing: O u r Extended Skin

119

13 Housing: N e w Look and N e w Outlook 123 14 Money: T h e Poor Man's Credit Card 131 15 Clocks: T h e Scent of T i m e 16 T h e Print: H o w to D i g I t

145 157

17 Comics: MAD Vestibule to T V

164

18 T h e Printed W o r d : Architect of Nationalism 170 19 Wheel, Bicycle, and Airplane

179

20 T h e Photograph: T h e Brothelwithout-Walls 188 21 Press: Government by News Leak 203 22 Motorcar: T h e Mechanical Bride

217

23 Ads: Keeping Upset w i t h the Joneses 226 24 Games: T h e Extensions of M a n 25 Telegraph: T h e Social Hormone

234 246

26 T h e T y p e w r i t e r : Into the Age of the Iron W h i m 258 27 T h e Telephone: Sounding Brass or T i n k l i n g Symbol? 265

Contents I v'\\ 28 T h e Phonograph: T h e T o y T h a t Shrank the National Chest 275 29 Movies: T h e Reel World

284

30 Radio: T h e T r i b a l D r u m

297

31 Television: T h e T i m i d Giant 32 Weapons: War of the Icons

308 338

33 Automation: Learning a L i v i n g

346

Further Readings for Media Study

361

Introduction to the MIT Press Edition The Eternal Now Lewis H . Lapham

T h i r t y years ago this past summer Herbert Marshall M c L u h a n published Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, and w i t h i n a matter of months the book acquired the standing of H o l y Scripture and made of its author the foremost oracle of the age. Seld o m i n living memory had so obscure a scholar descended so abruptly f r o m so remote a garret into the center ring of the celebrity circus, but M c L u h a n accepted the transformation as i f it were nothing out of the ordinary, nothing more than the inevitable and unsurprising proof of the hypothesis that he had found in the library at the University of T o r o n t o . H e was fifty-two years old at the time, Canadian by birth and a professor of English literature. As enigmatic as he was self-preoccupied, he had about h i m the air of a man who believed that it was the business of prophets to bring prophetic news, and i f he had peered into the mist of the future and foreseen the

xl Understanding Media passing of the printed w o r d , w e l l , he had done no more than notice what was both obvious and certain. H i s book introduced into the language our present usage of the term media, as well as a number of other precepts, among them "global village" and "Age of I n f o r m a t i o n " that since have become commonplaces, and by the fall of 1965 Understanding Media had prompted the New York Herald Tribune, speaking on behalf of what was then the consensus of informed opinion to proclaim its author "the most important thinker since N e w t o n , D a r w i n , Freud, E i n stein and Pavlov. . . . " For the next four or five years M c L u h a n toured the television talk shows as well as the corporate lecture circuit, astonishing his audiences w i t h a persona that joined, in T o m Wolfe's phrase, "the charisma o f a haruspex w i t h the irresistible certitude of the monomaniac." Woody Allen placed h i m on the set of Annie Hall, and artists as well k n o w n as A n d y Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg appointed h i m to the office of honorary muse. I n journals as unlike one another as Newsweek and Partisan Review, the resident cognoscenti found that when confronted w i t h sets of o t h erwise unrelated circumstance they could resolve their confusion merely by deploying the adjective "McLuhanesque." A l t h o u g h transformed into an eponym, the sage of the north retained the character of the rumpled professor, a gaunt and kindly figure, disorganized, absent-minded and quixotically dressed, always sure that the whole w o r l d could be made to fit into the trunk of his hypothesis, bestowing on audiences young and o l d , whether of insurance executives or guitarists on their way to Woodstock, the gifts of Delphic aphorism: " T h e electric light is pure i n f o r m a t i o n . " "We are moving out of the age of the visual into the age of the aural and tactile." "We are the television screen. . . . We wear all mankind as our skin." But even as M c L u h a n passed across the zenith of his fame, few of the people w h o explicated his text fully understood what it was that he was t r y i n g to say. T h e y guessed that he had come upon something important, but for the most part they interpreted h i m as a dealer in communications theory and turned his prophecies to

Introduction to the MIT Press Edition I x\ practical uses of their o w n . M c L u h a n had classified print as a hot medium and television as a cool medium, and although not one critic in five hundred was entirely sure what he meant by the distinction, the phrases served to justify a $40 million advertising campaign, a novel lacking both a protagonist and a plot, a collage of junked automobile tires. T h e alarms and excursions associated w i t h Understanding Media didn't survive McLuhan's death (on N e w Year's Eve 1980, at the age of sixty-nine), and as perhaps was to be expected f r o m artisans still working in a medium that the decedent had pronounced obsolete, the obituary notices were less than worshipful. Informed opinion had moved on to other things, and McLuhan's name and reputation were sent to the attic w i t h the rest of the sensibility (gogo boots, Sgt. Pepper, Woodstock, the Vietnam War) that embodied the failed hopes of a discredited decade. T h e judgment was poorly timed. M u c h of what M c L u h a n had to say makes a good deal more sense i n 1994 than it d i d in 1964, and even as his book was being remanded to the backlist, its more profound implications were beginning to make themselves manifest on M T V and the Internet, i n Ronald Reagan's political image and the re-animation of Richard N i x o n , via television shopping networks and e-mail—all of them technologies that M c L u h a n had presupposed but didn't live to see shaped i n silicon or glass. Despite its title, the book was never easy to understand. By turns brilliant and opaque, McLuhan's thought meets the specifications of the epistemology that he ascribes to the electronic media—nonlineal, repetitive, discontinuous, intuitive, proceeding by analogy instead of sequential argument. Beginning f r o m the premise that "we become what we behold," that "we shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us," M c L u h a n examines the diktats of t w o technological revolutions that overthrew a settled political and aesthetic order: first, i n the mid-fifteenth century, the invention of printing w i t h movable type, w h i c h encouraged people to think i n straight lines and to arrange their perceptions of the world i n forms convenient to the visual order of the printed page; second, since the late nineteenth century, the new applications of electricity (telegraph, telephone, television, computers, etc.), w h i c h taught people

xiilUnderstanding

Media

to rearrange their perceptions o f the w o r l d i n ways convenient to the protocols of cyberspace. Content follows f o r m , and the insurgent technologies give rise to new structures of feeling and thought. Once having stated this proposition, M c L u h a n works i t through a series of variations for the entire orchestra of human expression, and his chapter titles {The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis; The Typewriter: Into the Age of the Iron W h i m ; Weapons: War of the Icons; The Photograph: T h e Brothel w i t h o u t Walls) bear witness both to the tone of his rhetoric and the reach of his ambition. H i s vocabulary takes some getting used to (writing is visual; television is aural and tactile), and quite a few of the notions to w h i c h he offhandedly refers i n the early pages, as i f everybody already knew what he meant, he doesn't bother to explain until the later pages, often by way o f an afterthought or an aside. N o t until page 305 does he suggest that the content o f any medium is always another medium—"the content of the press is literary statement, as the content of the book is speech, and the content of the movie is the novel"—and it is only on page 349 that he clarifies his use of the phrase "mass media" by saying that "they are an indication, not of the size of their audiences, but of the fact that everybody becomes involved i n them at the same t i m e . " Some of his variations seem more credible than others, but I find that by making a list of the leitmotifs that wander i n and out of his prose i n the manner of Homeric epithets, I can formulate his d i alectic as a set of antonyms. T h e meanings i n the left-hand column M c L u h a n aligns w i t h the ascendancy of the printed w o r d during the four centuries between Johann Gutenberg's invention of printing w i t h movable type and Thomas Edison's invention of the electric light; the meanings in the right hand column he associates w i t h the sensibility now k n o w n as postmodern. Print

Electronic Media

visual

tactile

mechanical

organic

sequence

simultaneity

composition

improvisation

eye

ear

active

reactive

Introduction to the MIT Press EditionI x'xïi expansion complete

contraction incomplete

soliloquy classification

chorus

center

margin

pattern recognition

continuous

discontinuous

syntax self-expression

mosaic group therapy

Typographic man

Graphic man

W i t h i n a week o f the publication of Understanding Media, the guardians of the established literary order i n Toronto and N e w York read i n the right-hand column the portents of their o w n doom, and they were quick to find fault w i t h what the more scornful among them called McLuhan's "incantation." Speaking mostly to themselves, they dismissed w i t h contempt McLuhan's weird and h y b r i d dabbling i n "scientific mysticism," his superficial understanding of modern art, his naive faith i n technology, and his too primitive belief i n "merely physical sensation." A number of the objections were well taken, most especially the ones pertaining to McLuhan's discussion of the central nervous system (a subject i n clinical neurology about which he knew almost nothing), but for the most part the dyspeptic critics contrived to miss the point, refusing to accept McLuhan's approach to his topic and reducing the sum of his hypothesis to the trivial observation that the " E d Sullivan Show" was easier to read than the collected works of Wittgenstein and Plotinus. H e was talking about the media as "make-happen agents," not as "make-aware agents," as systems similar to roads and canals, not as precious art objects or uplifting models of behavior, and he repeatedly reminds his readers that his proposition is best understood as a literary trope, not as a scientific theory. H i s method is that of an English professor long acquainted w i t h libraries and familiar w i t h the apparatus of academic scholarship. Delighting i n bookish puns, he constantly cites as his authorities the idols of the Age of Print and quotes at length f r o m the novels of James Joyce, chiefly Finnegans Wake, and the poems of T . S. Eliot and W i l l i a m Blake, the letters of John Ruskin.

xiv/ Understanding Media As often as not he employs the quotations to make sport of the high-minded literary gentlemen w h o continue to believe that all would be well i f only the television networks would improve and correct the vulgar tone of their programming schedules, and he likes to compare his critics to the schoolmen of the late sixteenth century who railed against Gutenberg's typefaces as the precursors of intellectual anarchy and "the end of civilization as we know i t " — t h a t is, of an oral tradition founded upon illuminated manuscripts preserved in the vaults of a few monasteries. Just as the advent of print placed the means of communication i n the hands of a good many people previously presumed silent (prompting an excited rush of words f r o m , among others, Rabelais, Cervantes, and Shakespeare) so also the broad dissemination of the electronic media invites correspondence f r o m a good many more people presumed illiterate, and M c L u h a n suggests that i n the twentieth century as in the sixteenth, the literary man prefers "to view w i t h alarm to point w i t h pride, while scrupulously ignoring what's going o n . " H e has little sympathy or patience for people w h o defend positions already lost, and against the more pompous members of the literary academy (those who would restore the Republic of Letters as i f it were a Colonial Williamsburg) he brings to bear a sardonic sense of h u m o r — " f o r many years I've observed that the moralist typically substitutes anger for perception." His irony speaks to the superfluousness of most o f the criticism directed against the electronic media over the last t h i r t y years, and while reading his book I was reminded of some of m y o w n irrelevent pronouncements about the banality of network soap opera or the idiocy of the evening news. I had thought the pronouncements astute, or at least plausible, until I had occasion to write a six-hour television history of the twentieth century and discovered in the process what M c L u h a n meant by the phrase, "the medium is the message." A l l o w e d 78 seconds and 43 words i n w h i c h to explain the origins of W o r l d War I I and provide the transition between the M u n i c h Conference i n September 1938 and Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, I understood that television is not narrative, that it bears more of a resemblance to symbolist poetry or the pointillist painting of Georges Seurat than it does to anything

Introduction to the MIT Press Edition I xv conceived by a novelist, a historian, an essayist, or even a writer of newspaper editorials. Understanding Media confirms m y o w n experience on both sides of a television camera, and I think of i t as the kind of book that the reader can open almost at random, taking from it what he or she has the w i t to find. Some of McLuhan's observations lead nowhere; others deserve at least fifty pages of further commentary, and I ' m surprised that over the last t h i r t y years, despite the constant and obsessive muttering about the media—their ubiquitous presence and innate wickedness—so few critics have taken account of McLuhan's general theory. H i s prescience is extraordinary, and the events of the last t h i r t y years have proved h i m more often right than wrong. H i s hypothesis anticipates by t w o decades the dissolution of international frontiers and the collapse of the Cold War. H e assumes the inevitable rearrangement of university curricula under the rubrics of what we now call " m u l t i c u l t u r a l i s m , " and he knows that as commodities come to possess "more and more the character of information," the amassment of wealth w i l l come to depend upon the naming of the things rather than the making of things. Recognizing the weightlessness and self-referential character of the electronic media as well as the supremacy of the corporate logo or the Q rating, M c L u h a n describes a w o r l d i n w h i c h people live most of their lives w i t h i n the enclosed and mediated spaces governed by the rule of images. As is his custom, he best expresses the general point in a conversational aside, while he seems to be talking about something else: Travel differs very little from going to a movie or turning the pages of a magazine. . . . People . . . never arrive at any new place. T h e y can have Shanghai or Berlin or Venice in a package tour that they need never open. . . . T h u s the world itself becomes a sort of museum of objects that have been encountered before in some other medium. (198)

Let technology be understood, i n Max Frisch's phrase, as "the knack of so arranging the w o r l d so that we don't have to experience i t , " and McLuhan's point about the museum explains not only Ralph Lauren's fortune and B i l l Clinton's presence in the White House, but also the state of disrepair into w h i c h the United States has let

xviy'Understanding Media fall its highways, its railroads, and its cities. I f the media are nothing more than the means of storing and transporting information, and if by assuming the character of information commodities can be moved by fiber optics, fax machines, and A T M cards, then w h y bother to maintain an infrastructure geared to the purposes of medieval Europe or ancient Rome? O n almost every page of Understanding Media M c L u h a n sets i n motion equally promising lines of speculation, and although I ' m tempted to pursue at least five or six of t h e m — i n particular the one ascribing the existence of Nazi Germany to the match between the medium of radio and A d o l f Hitler's political persona (a persona that would have failed utterly on television)—I only have space enough to take up his point about the media's preoccupation w i t h what our more eminent critics still insist on deploring as "the bad news." Nowhere else have I come across so succinct a reply to the ceaseless lament about the viciousness of the yellow press. M c L u h a n notices, correctly, that i t is the bad news—reports of sexual scandal, natural disaster, and violent death—that sells the good news—that is, the advertisements. T h e bad news is the spiel that brings the suckers into the tent. Like the illustrations in a fifth-grade reader, the sequence of scenes on CBS or C N N teaches the late-twentieth-century American catechism: first, at the top of the news, the admonitory row of body bags being loaded into ambulances in Brooklyn or south M i a m i ; second, the inferno of tenement fires and burning warehouses; t h i r d , a sullen procession of criminals arraigned for robbery or murder and led away in chains. T h e text of the day's lesson having been thus established, the camera makes its happy return to the always smiling anchorwoman, and s o — w i t h her gracious permission—to the previews of heaven sponsored by Delta Airlines, Calvin K l e i n , and the State Farm Insurance companies. T h e homily is as plain as a medieval morality play or the bloodstains on D o n Johnson's A r m a n i suit—obey the law, pay your taxes, speak politely to the police officer, and you go to the V i r g i n Islands on the American Express card. Disobey the law, neglect your insurance payments, speak rudely to the police, and you go to Kings County Hospital in a body bag. It is the business of the mass media to sell products—their o w n as well as those o f their clients—and the critics who complain about

Introduction to the MIT Press Edition I x\ '\\ the ceaseless shows o f violence miss the comparison to the cocaine trade. Bad news engages the viewer's participation i n what M c Luhan recognized as a collective surge of intense consciousness (a "process that makes the content of the item seem quite secondary") and sets h i m up for the good news, which is much more expensively produced. A thirty-second television commercial sells for as much as $500,000 and can cost over $1 million to make; i n Time magazine, a single page of color advertising costs roughly $125,000 (a sum equivalent to the annual salary paid to one of the magazine's better writers), and M c L u h a n accurately accounts for the orders of priority by saying that the historians and archeologists one day w i l l discover that the twentieth century's commercial advertisements (like the stained-glass windows of fourteenth century cathedrals) offer the "richest and most faithful reflections that any society ever made of its entire range of activities." M c L u h a n developed his dialectic during twenty years of teaching undergraduate courses i n what was called "pop culture" at a succession of provincial universities i n the U n i t e d States and Canada, and as he learned better to understand the psychic effects of the electronic media, most notably their tendency to compress—and by so doing dissolve—the dimensions of space and time, he began to posit the existence of a w o r l d soul. I n his more transcendent and optimistic moments he gives way to a Utopian mysticism founded on his reading of G . K . Chesterton and his conversion, i n his early twenties, to Catholicism. Believing that i t was the grammar of print that divided mankind into isolated factions o f selfishly defined i n terests, castes, nationalities, and provinces of feeling, M c L u h a n also believes that the u n i f y i n g networks of electronic communication might restore mankind to a state of bliss not unlike the one said to have existed w i t h i n the Garden of Eden. Every now and then he beholds a Biblical vision i n the desert: If the work of the city is the remaking or translating of man into a more suitable form than his nomadic ancestors achieved, then might not our current translation of our entire lives into the spiritual form of information seem to make of the entire globe, and of the human family, a single consciousness? (61)

x v i i i / Understanding

Media

O r again, while telling the parable of the airline executive who built a little cairn o f pebbles collected f r o m all parts of the w o r l d , M c L u h a n makes of his text a lesson about mankind coming home at last f r o m the exile to w h i c h it had been sentenced by Johann Gutenberg and the scholars of the Italian Renaissance: When asked "so what?," he [the airline executive] said that in one spot one could touch every part of the world because of aviation. In effect he had hit upon the mosaic or iconic principle of simultaneous touch and interplay that is inherent in the implosive speed of the airplane. T h e same principle of implosive mosaic is even more characteristic of electric information movement of all kinds. (185)

I t is this mystical component of McLuhan's thought that lately has revived his reputation among the more visionary promoters of "the Information Superhighway" and the Internet. Journals specific to the concerns of cyberspace (Wired or T h e Whole Earth Review) touch on similarly transcendent themes; the authors of the leading articles talk about the late-twentieth-century substitution of "the Icon of the N e t for the Icon of the A t o m , " about the virtues of "the hive m i n d " (its sociability and lack of memory), about the connectedness of "all circuits, all intelligence, all things economic and ecological," about the revised definitions of self that take account of mankind's "distributed, headless, emergent wholeness." T h e y echo McLuhan's dicta about the redemptive powers of art and the coming to pass of a millennium i n w h i c h , "where the whole man is involved, there is no w o r k . " T h e rhetoric falls into the rhythms of what I take to be a kind of Utopian blank verse, and much of i t seems as overblown as the bombast arriving f r o m Washington about the beneficence of "the N e w W o r l d O r d e r " and the great happiness certain to unite the industrial nations of the earth under the tent of the General Agreement on Tariffs on Trade. T o m y m i n d M c L u h a n is most persuasive in the secular phases of his hypothesis, when he talks about present effects instead o f promised reunions. Approached as a guidebook to the artificial kingdom w i t h i n the glass walls of our communications technologies, Understanding Media describes the w o r l d that I see and

Introduction to the MIT Press Edition I x\\ know on CBS N e w s , at Disneyland, i n the suburban malls, on the covers of the fashion magazines—a w o r l d i n which human beings become commodities (sold on T-shirts or transposed into a series of digital numbers), a w o r l d i n w h i c h , as Simone Weil once noticed, " i t is the thing that thinks, and the man w h o is reduced to the state of the t h i n g , " a w o r l d i n which children find it hard to conceive o f a time future beyond the immediate and evangelical present, a w o r l d of people living i n their o w n movies and listening to their o w n soundtracks, a never-never land where the historical memory counts for as little as last year's debutante, where the crippled boy wins the lottery, the chorus girl studies ancient Greek, and the lessons of experience never contradict the miracles of paradise regained. T h e w o r l d that M c L u h a n describes has taken shape during m y o w n lifetime, and w i t h i n the span of m y o w n experience I can remember that as recently as 1960 it was still possible to make distinctions between the several forms of what were then known as the lively arts. T h e audiences recognized the differences between journalism, literature, politics, and the movies, and it was understood that the novelist wasn't expected to double as an acrobat or a talk-show host. T h e distinctions blurred under the technical and epistemological pressures of the next ten years, and as the lines between fact and fiction became as irrelevant as they were difficult to distinguish, the lively arts fused into the amalgam of forms known as the media. News was entertainment, and entertainment was news, and by 1970 network television was presenting continuous performances on the stage of events w i t h a repertory company of high-definition personalities w h o , like the actors i n a Shakespearean play, easily and abruptly shifted their mise-en-scenes to Dallas, Vietnam, Chicago, Vienna, Washington, and the Afghan frontier. T h e special effects were astonishing, and by 1980 McLuhan's theater of celebrity had replaced the old religious theater i n which Poseidon and Zeus once staged cataclysmic floods and heavenly fires w i t h the effortless aplomb of ABCs " W i d e World of Sports." T h e postmodern imagination is a product of the mass media, but as a means of perception it is more accurately described as preChristian. T h e vocabulary is necessarily primitive, reducing argument to gossip and history to the telling of fairy tales. T h e average

xxl Understanding Media American household now watches television roughly seven hours a day (as opposed to five-and-a-half hours a day when M c L u h a n published Understanding Media) and the soap opera stars receive thousands of letters a week i n w h i c h the adoring faithful confess secrets of the heart that they dare not tell their wives, their husbands, or their mothers. Like the old pagan systems of belief, the mass media grant the primacy of the personal over the impersonal. Whether i n Washington hearing rooms or H o l l y w o o d restaurants, names take precedence over things, the actor over the act. Just as the ancient Greeks assigned trace elements of the divine to trees and winds and stones (a river G o d sulked and the child drowned; a sky G o d smiled, and the corn ripened), the modern American assigns similar powers not only to whales and spotted owls but also to individuals marked by the aureoles of fame. O n television commercials and subway signs, celebrities of various magnitude, like the nymphs and satyrs and fauns of ancient m y t h , become the familiar spirits of automobiles, cameras, computers, and brokerage firms. Athletes show up on television breathing the gift of life into whatever products can be carried into a locker room, and aging movie actresses awaken w i t h their "personal touch" the spirit dormant in the color of a lipstick or a bottle of perfume. T h e greater images of celebrity posed on the covers of our magazines impart a sense of stability and calm to a w o r l d otherwise dissolved i n chaos. T h e newspaper headlines bring w o r d of violent change—war i n Bosnia, near anarchy i n Moscow, famine in Somalia, moral collapse i n Washington—but on the smooth surfaces of the magazines the faces look as vacant and imperturbable as they have looked for t w e n t y years, as steady i n their courses as the fixed stars, as serene as the bronze of Buddha i n the courtyard at Kamakura. There they all are—Liz and Elvis, Madonna and the Kennedys—indifferent to the turmoil of the news, bestowing on the confusion of events the smiles of infinite bliss. Like minor deities, or a little crowd of painted idols i n a roadside shrine, they ease the pain of doubt and hold at bay the fear of death. As M c L u h a n noticed t h i r t y years ago, the accelerated technologies of the electronic future carry us backward into the firelight flickering in the caves of a neolithic past. A m o n g people w h o worship the objects of their o w n invention (whether in the shape of the

Introduction to the MIT Press Edition I\x\ fax machine or the high-speed computer) and accept the blessing of an icon as proof of d i v i n i t y (whether expressed as the Coca-Cola trademark or as the label on a dress by Donna Karan), ritual becomes a form of applied knowledge. T h e individual voice and singular point of view disappears into the chorus of a corporate and collective consciousness, w h i c h , in McLuhan's phrase, doesn't "postulate consciousness of anything i n particular." I n place of an energetic politics, we substitute a frenzied spectacle, and the media set the terms of ritual combat imposed upon the candidates w h o would prove themselves fit to govern the republic. Medieval chroniclers tell of princesses w h o send Christian knights i n search of dragons, requiring them to recover bits and pieces of the true cross and to wander for many days and nights i n heathen forests. T o w a r d the end of the twentieth century, i n a country that prides itself on its faith i n reason, American presidents endure the trials by klieg light and wander for many days and nights i n a labyrinth of Holiday Inns. T h e presidency undoubtedly constitutes a fearful test of a man's capacities, but his capacities for what? Even i f the electorate understood or cared about something as tedious as the mechanics of government, how does it choose between the rivals for its fealty and esteem? T h e one attribute that can be known and seen comes to stand for all the other attributes that remain invisible, and so the test becomes one o f finding out w h o can survive the stupidity and pitiless indifference of the television cameras. H a d M c L u h a n lived long enough to contemplate the media's delight i n the inspection of Bill Clinton's soul, I expect that he might have suggested equipping the president w i t h a broadsword or an old crossbow and sending h i m into the field against four horsemen i n black armor or an infuriated bear. Assuming that the event could be properly promoted and attractively staged, I don't see w h y it wouldn't draw a sizable audience (at least as large as the one drummed up for Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya H a r d i n g at the O l y m p i c games), and I can imagine Peter Jennings or Connie Chung m u r m u r i n g sententious commentary about the president's prior showings against a l i o n , a N i n j a , and a wolf. Again as M c L u h a n understood, the habits of m i n d derived f r o m our use of the mass media—"we become what we behold. . . . We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us"—deconstruct the

x x i i / Understanding Media texts of a civilization founded on the premise of the printed page. T o the extent that we abandon the visual order of p r i n t , and w i t h it the corollary structures of feeling and thought (roads, empires, straight lines, hierarchy, classification, the novels of George Eliot or Jane Austen), we discard the idea of the townsman or the citizen and acquire the sensibilities characteristic of nomadic and pre-literate peoples. T h e t w o sets of circumstance imply different systems of meaning w h i c h , as w i t h McLuhan's dialectic, also can be expressed as a series of antonyms. Several years ago I had occasion to compose such a series, and I ' m struck by its nearly exact parallel w i t h McLuhan's distinction between the technology of the written word and those of the electronic media. As follows: Citizen

Nomad

build

wander

experience

innocence

authority

power

happiness

pleasure

literature

journalism

heterosexual

polymorphous

civilization

barbarism

will

wish

truth as passion

passion as truth

peace

war

achievement

celebrity

science

magic

doubt

certainty

drama

pornography

history

legend

argument

violence

wife

whore

art

dream

agriculture

banditry

politics

prophecy

T h e attitude o f m i n d suggested by the words i n the right-hand column is currently very much i n vogue i n the United States; i t accounts not only for the t r i u m p h of Madonna and Rush Limbaugh

Introduction to the MIT Press Edition

I'xxiii

but also for the reluctance of m y children to believe that I completely and t r u l y exist unless they can see me on television. By eliminating the dimensions of space and time, the electronic forms of communication also eliminate the presumption of cause and effect. Typographic man assumed that A follows B, that people w h o made things—whether cities, ideas, families, or works of a r t — measured their victories (usually Pyrrhic) over periods of time longer than those sold to the buyers of beer commercials. Graphic man imagines himself living i n the enchanted garden of the eternal now. I f all the w o r l d can be seen simultaneously, and i f all mankind's joy and suffering is always and everywhere present (if not on C N N or O p r a h , then on the "Sunday N i g h t M o v i e " or M T V ) , nothing necessarily follows f r o m anything else. Sequence becomes merely additive instead of causative. Like the nomadic hordes wandering across an ancient desert i n search of the soul's oasis, graphic man embraces the pleasures of barbarism and swears fealty to the sovereignty of the moment.

Parti

Introduction

J Times

a m e s

Reston w r o t e i n The ( J u l y 7, 1957):

New

York

A health director . . . reported this week that a small mouse, which presumably had been watching television, attacked a little girl and her full-grown cat. . . . Both mouse and cat survived, and the incident is recorded here as a reminder that things seem to be changing.

3

A f t e r three thousand years o f explosion, b y means o f fragmentary and mechanical technologies, the W e s t e r n w o r l d is i m p l o d i n g . D u r i n g the mechanical ages w e had extended our bodies i n space. T o day, after more than a century o f elect r i c technology, w e have extended o u r central nervous system itself i n a global embrace, abolishing b o t h space and time as far as our planet is concerned. R a p i d l y , w e approach the final phase o f the extensions of man—the technological simulation o f consciousness, w h e n the creative process o f k n o w i n g w i l l be collectively and cor-

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porately extended to the w h o l e o f human society, m u c h as w e have already extended our senses and our nerves b y the various media. W h e t h e r the extension of consciousness, so l o n g sought b y advertisers f o r specific products, w i l l be "a good t h i n g " is a question that admits o f a w i d e solution. T h e r e is little possibility of answering such questions about the extensions o f man w i t h o u t considering all o f t h e m together. A n y extension, whether o f skin, hand, or f o o t , affects the w h o l e psychic and social complex. Some o f the principal extensions, together w i t h some of their psychic and social consequences, are studied i n this book. Just h o w l i t t l e consideration has been given to such matters i n the past can be gathered f r o m the consternation o f one o f the editors of this book. H e noted i n dismay that "seventy-five per cent of y o u r material is new. A successful book cannot venture to be more than ten per cent n e w . " Such a risk seems quite w o r t h taking at the present t i m e w h e n the stakes are v e r y high, and the need t o understand the effects of the extensions o f man becomes more u r gent b y the hour. I n the mechanical age n o w receding, many actions could be taken w i t h o u t too m u c h concern. Slow movement insured that the reactions w e r e delayed f o r considerable periods o f time. T o d a y the action and the reaction occur almost at the same time. W e actually live m y t h i c a l l y and integrally, as i t were, b u t w e continue t o t h i n k i n the o l d , fragmented space and t i m e patterns of the pre-electric age. W e s t e r n man acquired f r o m the technology of literacy the p o w e r t o act w i t h o u t reacting. T h e advantages o f fragmenting himself i n this w a y are seen i n the case o f the surgeon w h o w o u l d be quite helpless i f he were t o become humanly involved i n his operation. W e acquired the art o f c a r r y i n g o u t the most dangerous social operations w i t h complete detachment. B u t our detachment was a posture o f noninvolvement. I n the electric age, w h e n our central nervous system is technologically extended to involve us i n the w h o l e of m a n k i n d and t o incorporate the whole of mankind i n us, w e necessarily participate, i n depth, i n the consequences o f our every action. I t is no longer possible to adopt the aloof and dissociated role o f the literate Westerner.

Introduction/S T h e Theater o f the A b s u r d dramatizes this recent dilemma o f Western man, the man o f action w h o appears n o t to be involved i n the action. Such is the o r i g i n and appeal o f Samuel Beckett's clowns. A f t e r three thousand years of specialist explosion and o f increasing specialism and alienation i n the technological extensions o f our bodies, our w o r l d has become compressional b y dramatic reversal. As electrically contracted, the globe is no more than a village. Electric speed i n b r i n g i n g all social and political functions together i n a sudden implosion has heightened human awareness o f responsibility t o an intense degree. I t is this implosive factor that alters the position o f the N e g r o , the teen-ager, and some other groups. T h e y can no longer be contained, i n the political sense o f limited association. T h e y are n o w involved i n our lives, as w e i n theirs, thanks to the electric media. T h i s is the A g e o f A n x i e t y f o r the reason of the electric implosion that compels commitment and participation, quite regardless o f any " p o i n t of v i e w . " T h e partial and specialized character o f the v i e w p o i n t , however noble, w i l l n o t serve at all i n the electric age. A t the i n f o r m a t i o n level the same upset has occurred w i t h the substitution o f the inclusive image f o r the mere viewpoint. I f the nineteenth c e n t u r y was the age of the editorial chair, ours is the century o f the psychiatrist's couch. As extension o f man the chair is a specialist ablation of the posterior, a sort of ablative absolute of backside, whereas the couch extends the integral being. T h e psychiatrist employs the couch, since i t removes the temptation t o express private points o f v i e w and obviates the need t o rationalize events. T h e aspiration o f our time f o r wholeness, empathy and depth o f awareness is a natural adjunct o f electric technology. T h e age o f mechanical i n d u s t r y that preceded us f o u n d vehement assert i o n o f private o u t l o o k the natural mode o f expression. E v e r y c u l ture and every age has its favorite model o f perception and knowledge that i t is inclined t o prescribe f o r everybody and everyt h i n g . T h e mark o f o u r time is its revulsion against imposed patterns. W e are suddenly eager t o have things and people declare their beings t o t a l l y . T h e r e is a deep f a i t h t o be f o u n d i n this new attitude—a faith that concerns the ultimate harmony o f all

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being. Such is the faith i n w h i c h this book has been w r i t t e n . I t explores the contours o f our o w n extended beings i n our technologies, seeking the principle o f i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y i n each o f them. I n the f u l l confidence that i t is possible t o w i n an understanding o f these forms that w i l l b r i n g them into o r d e r l y service, I have looked at them anew, accepting v e r y little of the conventional wisdom concerning them. One can say o f media as R o b e r t T h e o bald has said o f economic depressions: " T h e r e is one additional factor that has helped to c o n t r o l depressions, and that is a better understanding of their development." Examination of the origin and development o f the individual extensions o f man should be preceded b y a look at some general aspects of the media, or extensions o f man, beginning w i t h the never-explained numbness that each extension brings about i n the individual and society.

1 The Medium Is the Message

I n a culture like ours, l o n g accustomed t o splitting and d i v i d i n g all things as a means o f c o n t r o l , i t is sometimes a b i t o f a shock t o be reminded that, i n operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. T h i s is merely t o say that the personal and social consequences o f any medium—that is, o f any extension of ourselves—result f r o m the new scale that is introduced into our affairs b y each extension of ourselves, or b y any n e w technology. T h u s , w i t h automation, f o r example, the new patterns o f human association tend t o eliminate jobs, i t is true. T h a t is the negative result. Positively, automation creates roles f o r people, w h i c h is t o say depth o f involvement i n their w o r k and human association that our preceding mechanical technolo g y had destroyed. M a n y people w o u l d be disposed t o say that i t was n o t the machine, b u t w h a t one d i d w i t h the machine, that was its meaning or message. I n terms of the ways i n w h i c h the machine

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altered our relations t o one another and to ourselves, i t mattered n o t i n the least whether i t t u r n e d o u t cornflakes or Cadillacs. T h e restructuring o f human w o r k and association was shaped b y the technique o f fragmentation that is the essence o f machine technology. T h e essence o f automation technology is the opposite. I t is integral and decentralist i n depth, just as the machine was f r a g mentary, centralist, and superficial i n its patterning of human relationships. T h e instance o f the electric l i g h t m a y prove illuminating i n this connection. T h e electric l i g h t is pure i n f o r m a t i o n . I t is a medium w i t h o u t a message, as i t were, unless i t is used t o spell out some verbal ad or name. T h i s fact, characteristic o f all media, means that the " c o n t e n t " o f any medium is always another medium. T h e content o f w r i t i n g is speech, just as the w r i t t e n w o r d is the content o f p r i n t , and p r i n t is the content o f the telegraph. I f i t is asked, " W h a t is the content o f speech?," i t is necessary t o say, " I t is an actual process o f thought, w h i c h is i n itself nonverbal." A n abstract painting represents direct manifestation o f creative t h o u g h t processes as they m i g h t appear i n computer designs. W h a t w e are considering here, however, are the psychic and social consequences o f the designs or patterns as they a m p l i f y or accelerate existing processes. For the "message" of any medium or technology is the change o f scale or pace or pattern that i t introduces i n t o human affairs. T h e r a i l w a y d i d n o t i n t r o duce movement or transportation or wheel or road into human society, b u t i t accelerated and enlarged the scale of previous human functions, creating t o t a l l y new kinds o f cities and new kinds o f w o r k and leisure. T h i s happened whether the r a i l w a y functioned i n a tropical or a n o r t h e r n environment, and is quite independent o f the f r e i g h t o r content o f the r a i l w a y medium. T h e airplane, o n the other hand, b y accelerating the rate o f transportation, tends t o dissolve the r a i l w a y f o r m o f c i t y , politics, and association, quite independently o f w h a t the airplane is used for. L e t us r e t u r n to the electric light. W h e t h e r the l i g h t is being used f o r brain surgery or n i g h t baseball is a matter o f indifference.

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I t could be argued that these activities are i n some w a y the " c o n t e n t " o f the electric l i g h t , since they c o u l d n o t exist w i t h o u t the electric light. T h i s fact merely underlines the p o i n t that "the medium is the message" because i t is the m e d i u m that shapes and controls the scale and f o r m o f human association and action. T h e content or uses o f such media are as diverse as they are ineffectual in shaping the f o r m o f human association. Indeed, i t is o n l y too typical that the " c o n t e n t " o f any m e d i u m blinds us t o the character o f the medium. I t is o n l y today that industries have become aware o f the various kinds o f business i n w h i c h t h e y are engaged. W h e n I B M discovered that i t was n o t i n the business o f making office equipment or business machines, b u t that i t was i n the business o f processing i n f o r m a t i o n , then i t began to navigate w i t h clear vision. T h e General Electric Company makes a considerable p o r t i o n o f its profits f r o m electric l i g h t bulbs and l i g h t i n g systems. I t has n o t y e t discovered that, quite as m u c h as A . T . & T . , i t is i n the business of m o v i n g i n f o r m a t i o n . T h e electric l i g h t escapes attention as a communication medium just because i t has no "content." A n d this makes i t an invaluable instance o f h o w people fail t o study media at all. F o r i t is n o t t i l l the electric l i g h t is used t o spell out some brand name that i t is noticed as a medium. T h e n i t is n o t the l i g h t b u t the " c o n t e n t " ( o r w h a t is really another m e d i u m ) that is noticed. T h e message o f the electric l i g h t is l i k e the message o f electric p o w e r i n industry, t o t a l l y radical, pervasive, and decentralized. F o r electric light and p o w e r are separate f r o m their uses, y e t t h e y eliminate time and space factors i n human association exactly as do radio, telegraph, telephone, and T V , creating involvement i n depth. A f a i r l y complete handbook f o r s t u d y i n g the extensions o f man could be made u p f r o m selections f r o m Shakespeare. Some m i g h t quibble about whether or n o t he was r e f e r r i n g t o T V i n these familiar lines f r o m Romeo and Juliet: But soft! what light through yonder window breaks? I t speaks, and yet says nothing. I n Othello, w h i c h , as m u c h as King Lear, is concerned w i t h the torment of people transformed b y illusions, there are these

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lines that bespeak Shakespeare's i n t u i t i o n o f the transforming powers of n e w media: Is there not charms By which the property of youth and maidhood May be abus'd? Have y o u not read Roderigo, O f some such thing? I n Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, w h i c h is almost completely devoted t o b o t h a psychic and social study of communication, Shakespeare states his awareness that true social and political navigation depend u p o n anticipating the consequences of i n novation: The providence that's i n a watchful state Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold, Finds bottom i n the uncomprehensive deeps, Keeps place w i t h thought, and almost like the gods Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. T h e increasing awareness o f the action o f media, quite i n dependently of their " c o n t e n t " or p r o g r a m m i n g , was indicated i n the annoyed and anonymous stanza: I n modern thought, ( i f not i n fact) Nothing is that doesn't act, So that is reckoned wisdom which Describes the scratch but not the itch. T h e same k i n d o f total, configurational awareness that reveals w h y the m e d i u m is socially the message has occurred i n the most recent and radical medical theories. I n his Stress of Life, Hans Selye tells of the dismay o f a research colleague o n hearing o f Selye's t h e o r y : W h e n he saw me thus launched on yet another enraptured description of what I had observed i n animals treated w i t h this or that impure, toxic material, he looked at me w i t h desperately sad eyes and said i n obvious despair: "But Selye, t r y to realize what you are doing before i t is too late! You have now decided to spend your entire life studying the pharmacology of d i r t ! " (Hans Selye, The Stress of Life)

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As Selye deals w i t h the total environmental situation i n his "stress" theory o f disease, so the latest approach t o media study considers not o n l y the " c o n t e n t " b u t the m e d i u m and the cultural matrix w i t h i n w h i c h the particular m e d i u m operates. T h e older unawareness of the psychic and social effects o f media can be illustrated f r o m almost any o f the conventional pronouncements. I n accepting an honorary degree f r o m the U n i v e r s i t y o f N o t r e Dame a f e w years ago, General D a v i d SarnofF made this statement: " W e are too prone t o make technological instruments the scapegoats f o r the sins o f those w h o w i e l d them. T h e products o f modern science are n o t i n themselves good or bad; i t is the w a y they are used that determines their value." T h a t is the voice o f the current somnambulism. Suppose w e were t o say, " A p p l e pie is i n itself neither good nor bad; i t is the w a y i t is used that determines its value." O r , " T h e smallpox virus is i n itself neither good n o r bad; i t is the w a y i t is used that determines its value." A g a i n , "Firearms are i n themselves neither good nor bad; i t is the w a y they are used that determines their value." T h a t is, i f the slugs reach the r i g h t people firearms are good. I f the T V tube fires the r i g h t ammunition at the r i g h t people i t is good. I am n o t being perverse. T h e r e is s i m p l y n o t h i n g i n the Sarnoff statement that w i l l bear scrutiny, f o r i t ignores the nature o f the medium, o f any and all media, i n the true Narcissus style o f one hypnotized b y the amputation and extension o f his o w n being i n a n e w technical f o r m ! General Sarnoff w e n t o n t o explain his attitude t o the technology of p r i n t , saying that i t was true that p r i n t caused m u c h trash t o circulate, b u t i t had also disseminated the Bible and the thoughts o f seers and philosophers. I t has never occurred t o General Sarnoff that any technology c o u l d do a n y t h i n g b u t add itself o n t o w h a t w e already are. v

Such economists as Robert Theobald, W . W . Rostow, and John Kenneth Galbraith have been explaining f o r years h o w i t is that "classical economics" cannot explain change or g r o w t h . A n d the paradox o f mechanization is that although i t is itself the cause o f maximal g r o w t h and change, the principle o f mechanization excludes the v e r y possibility of g r o w t h or the understanding o f change. For mechanization is achieved b y fragmentation of any

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process and b y p u t t i n g the fragmented parts i n a series. Yet, as D a v i d H u m e showed i n the eighteenth century, there is no principle o f causality i n a mere sequence. T h a t one t h i n g follows another accounts f o r n o t h i n g . N o t h i n g f o l l o w s f r o m f o l l o w i n g , except change. So the greatest o f all reversals occurred w i t h electricity, that ended sequence b y making things instant. W i t h instant speed the causes o f things began t o emerge t o awareness again, as they had n o t done w i t h things i n sequence and i n concatenation accordingly. Instead o f asking w h i c h came first, the chicken o r the egg, i t suddenly seemed that a chicken was an egg's idea f o r getting more eggs. Just before an airplane breaks the sound barrier, sound waves become visible o n the wings of the plane. T h e sudden visibility o f sound just as sound ends is an apt instance of that great pattern o f being that reveals new and opposite forms just as the earlier forms reach their peak performance. Mechanization was never so v i v i d l y fragmented or sequential as i n the b i r t h o f the movies, the moment that translated us beyond mechanism i n t o the w o r l d o f g r o w t h and organic interrelation. T h e movie, b y sheer speeding u p the mechanical, carried us f r o m the w o r l d o f sequence and connections i n t o the w o r l d o f creative configuration and structure. T h e message o f the movie medium is that o f transition f r o m lineal connections t o configurations. I t is the transition that produced the n o w quite correct observation: " I f i t w o r k s , it's obsolete." W h e n electric speed f u r t h e r takes over f r o m mechanical movie sequences, then the lines o f force i n structures and i n media become l o u d and clear. W e r e t u r n t o the inclusive f o r m of the i c o n . T o a h i g h l y literate and mechanized culture the movie appeared as a w o r l d o f t r i u m p h a n t illusions and dreams that money could b u y . I t was at this m o m e n t o f the movie that cubism occurred, and i t has been described b y E. H . G o m b r i c h (Art and Illusion) as " t h e most radical attempt t o stamp out ambiguity and t o enforce one reading of the picture—that o f a man-made construction, a colored canvas." F o r cubism substitutes all facets of an object simultaneously f o r the " p o i n t o f v i e w " or facet o f perspective illusion. Instead o f the specialized illusion o f the t h i r d

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dimension on canvas, cubism sets up an interplay o f planes and contradiction or dramatic conflict o f patterns, lights, textures that "drives home the message" b y involvement. T h i s is held b y many to be an exercise i n painting, n o t i n illusion. I n other words, cubism, b y giving the inside and outside, the top, b o t t o m , back, and f r o n t and the rest, i n t w o dimensions, drops the illusion of perspective i n favor o f instant sensory awareness o f the w h o l e . Cubism, b y seizing o n instant total awareness, suddenly announced that the medium is the message. Is i t n o t evident that the moment that sequence yields t o the simultaneous, one is i n the w o r l d o f the structure and o f configuration? Is that n o t w h a t has happened i n physics as i n painting, p o e t r y , and i n communication? Specialized segments o f attention have shifted t o total field, and w e can n o w say, " T h e m e d i u m is the message" quite naturally. Before the electric speed and t o t a l field, i t was n o t obvious that the medium is the message. T h e message, i t seemed, was the " c o n t e n t , " as people used t o ask w h a t a painting was abotét. Y e t t h e y never thought to ask w h a t a melody was about, nor w h a t a house or a dress was about. I n such matters, people retained some sense of the w h o l e pattern, o f f o r m and f u n c t i o n as a u n i t y . B u t i n the electric age this integral idea o f structure and configuration has become so prevalent that educational t h e o r y has taken u p the matter. Instead o f w o r k i n g w i t h specialized "problems" i n a r i t h metic, the structural approach n o w f o l l o w s the linea o f force i n the field o f number and has small children meditating about n u m ber theory and "sets." Cardinal N e w m a n said o f Napoleon, " H e understood the grammar o f g u n p o w d e r . " Napoleon had paid some attention t o other media as w e l l , especially the semaphore telegraph that gave h i m a great advantage over his enemies. H e is o n record f o r saying that " T h r e e hostile newspapers are m o r e t o be feared than a thousand bayonets." Alexis de Tocqueville was the first t o master the grammar o f p r i n t and t y p o g r a p h y . H e was thus able t o read off the message o f c o m i n g change i n France and America as i f he were reading aloud f r o m a text that had been handed t o h i m . In, fact, the nineteenth century i n France and i n A m e r i c a was just such an

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open book t o de Tocqueville because he had learned the grammar o f p r i n t . So he, also, k n e w w h e n that grammar d i d n o t apply. H e was asked w h y he d i d n o t w r i t e a book o n England, since he k n e w and admired England. H e replied: One would have to have an unusual degree of philosophical folly to believe oneself able to judge England i n six months. A year always seemed to me too short a time i n which to appreciate the United States properly, and i t is much easier to acquire clear and precise notions about the American Union than about Great Britain. I n America all laws derive in a sense f r o m the same line of thought. The whole of society, so to speak, is founded upon a single fact; everything springs f r o m a simple principle. One could compare America to a forest pierced by a multitude of straight roads all converging on the same point. One has only to find the center and everything is revealed at a glance. But i n England the paths r u n criss-cross, and i t is only by travelling down each one of them that one can build up a picture of the whole. D e Tocqueville, i n earlier w o r k o n the French Revolution, had explained h o w i t was the p r i n t e d w o r d that, achieving cultural saturation i n the eighteenth century, had homogenized the French nation. Frenchmen were the same k i n d o f people f r o m n o r t h t o south. T h e typographic principles o f u n i f o r m i t y , c o n t i n u i t y , and lineality had overlaid the complexities of ancient feudal and oral society. T h e Revolution was carried o u t b y the n e w literati and lawyers. I n England, however, such was the power of the ancient oral traditions o f c o m m o n law, backed b y the medieval institution o f Parliament, that no u n i f o r m i t y or c o n t i n u i t y o f the n e w visual p r i n t culture could take complete hold. T h e result was that the most i m p o r t a n t event i n English history has never taken place; namely, the English Revolution o n the lines of the French Revolut i o n . T h e A m e r i c a n Revolution had no medieval legal institutions t o discard or t o r o o t out, apart f r o m monarchy. A n d many have held that the A m e r i c a n Presidency has become v e r y m u c h more personal and monarchical than any European monarch ever could be. De Tocqueville's

contrast between England and America

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is clearly based o n the fact o f t y p o g r a p h y and o f p r i n t culture creating u n i f o r m i t y and c o n t i n u i t y . England, he says, has rejected this principle and clung t o the dynamic or oral common-law tradition. Hence the discontinuity and unpredictable quality o f English culture. T h e grammar o f p r i n t cannot help t o construe the message of oral and n o n w r i t t e n culture and institutions. T h e English aristocracy was p r o p e r l y classified as barbarian b y M a t t h e w A r n o l d because its power and status had n o t h i n g t o do w i t h literacy or w i t h the cultural forms o f t y p o g r a p h y . Said the D u k e of Gloucester t o E d w a r d G i b b o n u p o n the publication o f his Decline and Fall: " A n o t h e r damned fat book, eh, M r . G i b bon? Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, M r . G i b b o n ? " De T o c q u e ville was a h i g h l y literate aristocrat w h o was quite able to be detached f r o m the values and assumptions o f t y p o g r a p h y . T h a t is w h y he alone understood the grammar of t y p o g r a p h y . A n d i t is o n l y on those terms, standing aside f r o m any structure or medium, that its principles and lines o f force can be discerned. For any medium has the p o w e r o f imposing its o w n assumption o n the u n w a r y . Prediction and c o n t r o l consist i n avoiding this subliminal state o f Narcissus trance. B u t the greatest aid t o this end is simply i n k n o w i n g that the spell can occur immediately u p o n contact, as i n the first bars o f a melody. A Passage to India b y E. M . Forster is a dramatic study o f the i n a b i l i t y of oral and i n t u i t i v e oriental culture t o meet w i t h the rational, visual European patterns of experience. "Rational," o f course, has f o r the W e s t l o n g meant " u n i f o r m and continuous and sequential." I n other words, w e have confused reason w i t h literacy, and rationalism w i t h a single technology. T h u s i n the electric age man seems t o the conventional W e s t t o become irrational. I n Forster's novel the moment o f t r u t h and dislocation f r o m the typographic trance o f the W e s t comes i n the Marabar Caves. Adela Quested's reasoning powers cannot cope w i t h the total inclusive field o f resonance that is India. A f t e r the Caves: " L i f e w e n t on as usual, b u t had no consequences, that is t o say, sounds d i d not echo nor t h o u g h t develop. E v e r y t h i n g seemed c u t off at its r o o t and therefore infected w i t h illusion." A Passage to India

(the phrase is f r o m W h i t m a n , w h o saw

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America headed Eastward) is a parable o f Western man i n the electric age, and is o n l y incidentally related t o Europe or the Orient. T h e ultimate conflict between sight and sound, between w r i t t e n and oral kinds o f perception and organization o f existence is u p o n us. Since understanding stops action, as Nietzsche observed, w e can moderate the fierceness o f this conflict b y understanding the media that extend us and raise these wars w i t h i n and w i t h o u t us. Detribalization b y literacy and its traumatic effects o n tribal man is the theme o f a book b y the psychiatrist J. C. Carothers, The African Mind in Health and Disease ( W o r l d H e a l t h O r g a n i zation, Geneva, 1953). M u c h o f his material appeared i n an article i n Psychiatry magazine, November, 1 9 5 9 : " T h e Culture, Psychiatry, and the W r i t t e n W o r d . " A g a i n , i t is electric speed that has revealed the lines o f force operating f r o m W e s t e r n technology i n the remotest areas o f bush, savannah, and desert. One example is the Bedouin w i t h his battery radio o n board the camel. Subm e r g i n g natives w i t h floods o f concepts f o r w h i c h n o t h i n g has prepared them is the normal action o f all o f our technology. B u t w i t h electric media W e s t e r n man himself experiences exactly the same inundation as the remote native. W e are no more prepared t o encounter radio and T V i n our literate milieu than the native o f Ghana is able t o cope w i t h the literacy that takes h i m o u t o f his collective t r i b a l w o r l d and beaches h i m i n individual isolation. W e are as n u m b i n our n e w electric w o r l d as the native involved i n our literate and mechanical culture. Electric speed mingles the cultures o f prehistory w i t h the dregs o f industrial marketeers, the nonliterate w i t h the semiliterate and the postliterate. M e n t a l b r e a k d o w n o f v a r y i n g degrees is the v e r y common result o f u p r o o t i n g and inundation w i t h n e w i n f o r m a t i o n and endless n e w patterns o f i n f o r m a t i o n . W y n d h a m Lewis made this a theme o f his g r o u p o f novels called The Human Age. T h e first o f these, The Childermass, is concerned precisely w i t h accelerated media change as a k i n d o f massacre o f the i n nocents. I n our o w n w o r l d as w e become more aware o f the effects of technology o n psychic f o r m a t i o n and manifestation, w e are losing all confidence i n our r i g h t t o assign guilt. A n c i e n t pre-

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historic societies regard violent crime as pathetic. T h e killer is regarded as w e do a cancer v i c t i m . " H o w terrible i t must be t o feel like t h a t , " they say. J. M . Synge t o o k u p this idea v e r y effectively i n his Playboy of the Western World. I f the criminal appears as a nonconformist w h o is unable t o meet the demand o f technology that w e behave i n u n i f o r m and continuous patterns, literate man is quite inclined t o see others w h o cannot c o n f o r m as somewhat pathetic. Especially the child, the cripple, the w o m a n , and the colored person appear i n a w o r l d of visual and typographic technology as victims o f injustice. O n the other hand, i n a culture that assigns roles instead o f jobs t o people—the d w a r f , the skew, the child create their o w n spaces. T h e y are n o t expected t o f i t i n t o some u n i f o r m and repeatable niche that is n o t their size a n y w a y . Consider the phrase "It's a man's w o r l d . " A s a quantitative observation endlessly repeated f r o m w i t h i n a homogenized culture, this phrase refers t o the men in such a culture w h o have t o be homogenized Dagwoods i n order to belong at all. I t is i n our I . Q . testing that w e have produced the greatest flood o f misbegottten standards. Unaware o f our t y p o graphic cultural bias, our testers assume that u n i f o r m and c o n tinuous habits are a sign o f intelligence, thus eliminating the ear man and the tactile man. C. P. Snow, r e v i e w i n g a book o f A . L . Rowse (The New York Times Book Review, December 24, 1961) o n Appeasement and the road t o M u n i c h , describes the t o p level o f British brains and experience i n the 1930s. " T h e i r I.Q.'s were m u c h higher than usual among political bosses. W h y were t h e y such a disaster?" T h e v i e w o f Rowse, Snow approves: " T h e y w o u l d n o t listen t o warnings because they d i d n o t w i s h t o hear." Being anti-Red made i t impossible f o r them t o read the message o f H i t l e r . B u t their failure was as n o t h i n g compared t o o u r present one. T h e A m e r i c a n stake i n literacy as a technology or u n i f o r m i t y applied to every level o f education, government, industry, and social life is t o t a l l y threatened b y the electric technology. T h e threat of Stalin or H i t l e r was external. T h e electric technology is w i t h i n the gates, and w e are n u m b , deaf, b l i n d , and mute about its encounter w i t h the Gutenberg technology, o n and t h r o u g h w h i c h

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the American w a y of life was f o r m e d . I t is, however, no time t o suggest strategies w h e n the threat has n o t even been a c k n o w l edged t o exist. I am i n the position o f Louis Pasteur telling doctors that their greatest enemy was quite invisible, and quite unrecognized b y them. O u r conventional response to all media, namely that i t is h o w they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the " c o n t e n t " of a m e d i u m is like the j u i c y piece o f meat carried b y the burglar t o distract the w a t c h dog o f the m i n d . T h e effect o f the medium is made strong and intense just because i t is given another medium as "content." T h e content o f a movie is a novel or a play or an opera. T h e effect of the movie f o r m is not related t o its program content. T h e " c o n t e n t " o f w r i t i n g or p r i n t is speech, b u t the reader is almost entirely unaware either of p r i n t or o f speech. A r n o l d T o y n b e e is innocent o f any understanding o f media as they have shaped history, b u t he is f u l l of examples that the student o f media can use. A t one moment he can seriously suggest that adult education, such as the W o r k e r s Educational Associat i o n i n Britain, is a useful counterforce t o the popular press. T o y n bee considers that although all o f the oriental societies have i n our time accepted the industrial technology and its political consequences: " O n the cultural plane, however, there is no u n i f o r m corresponding tendency." (Somervell, I . 267) T h i s is like the voice of the literate man, floundering i n a milieu of ads, w h o boasts, "Personally, I pay no attention to ads." T h e spiritual and cultural reservations that the oriental peoples may have t o w a r d our technology w i l l avail them not at all. T h e effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, b u t alter sense ratios or patterns o f perception steadily and w i t h o u t any resistance. T h e serious artist is the o n l y person able t o encounter technology w i t h i m p u n i t y , just because he is an expert aware o f the changes i n sense perception. T h e operation of the money m e d i u m i n seventeenth-century Japan had effects n o t unlike the operation o f t y p o g r a p h y i n the W e s t . T h e penetration of the money economy, w r o t e G . B. Sansom ( i n Japan, Cresset Press, L o n d o n , 1931) "caused a slow b u t

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irresistible revolution, culminating i n the breakdown o f feudal government and the resumption of intercourse w i t h foreign countries after more than t w o hundred years o f seclusion." M o n e y has reorganized the sense life of peoples just because i t is an extension of our sense lives. T h i s change does n o t depend u p o n approval or disapproval o f those l i v i n g i n the society. A r n o l d T o y n b e e made one approach t o the transforming power o f media i n his concept of "etherialization," w h i c h he holds to be the principle of progressive simplification and efficiency i n any organization or technology. T y p i c a l l y , he is ignoring the effect o f the challenge o f these forms u p o n the response of our senses. H e imagines that i t is the response of our opinions that is relevant t o the effect o f media and technology i n society, a " p o i n t of v i e w " that is plainly the result of the t y p o graphic spell. For the man i n a literate and homogenized society ceases to be sensitive t o the diverse and discontinuous life of forms. H e acquires the illusion o f the t h i r d dimension and the "private point of v i e w " as part of his Narcissus fixation, and is quite shut off f r o m Blake's awareness or that o f the Psalmist, that w e become w h a t w e behold. T o d a y w h e n w e w a n t to get our bearings i n our o w n culture, and have need to stand aside f r o m the bias and pressure exerted b y any technical f o r m o f human expression, w e have o n l y to visit a society where that particular f o r m has n o t been felt, or a historical period i n w h i c h i t was u n k n o w n . Professor W i l b u r Schramm made such a tactical move i n s t y d y i n g Television in the Lives of Our Children. H e f o u n d areas where T V had not penetrated at all and ran some tests. Since he had made no study o f the peculiar nature o f the T V image, his tests were o f " c o n t e n t " preferences, v i e w i n g time, and vocabulary counts. I n a w o r d , his approach t o the problem was a l i t e r a r y one, albeit u n c o n sciously so. Consequently, he had n o t h i n g t o report. H a d his methods been employed i n 1500 A.D. t o discover the effects of the printed book i n the lives of children or adults, he could have f o u n d out nothing o f the changes i n human and social psychology resulting f r o m t y p o g r a p h y . P r i n t created individualism and nation-

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alism i n the sixteenth century. Program and " c o n t e n t " analysis offer no clues to the magic of these media or to their subliminal charge. Leonard D o o b , i n his report Communication in Africa, tells of one A f r i c a n w h o t o o k great pains t o listen each evening t o the BBC news, even t h o u g h he could understand n o t h i n g of i t . Just t o be i n the presence of those sounds at 7 P . M . each day was i m p o r t a n t f o r h i m . H i s attitude to speech was like ours t o melody—the resonant intonation was meaning enough. I n the seventeenth century our ancestors still shared this native's attitude t o the forms o f media, as is plain i n the f o l l o w i n g sentiment o f the Frenchman Bernard L a m expressed i n The Art of Speaking ( L o n d o n , 1696): 'Tis an effect of the Wisdom of God, who created Man to be happy, that whatever is useful to his conversation (way of life) is agreeable to him . . . because all victual that conduces to nourishment is relishable, whereas other things that cannot be assimulated and be turned into our substance are insipid. A Discourse cannot be pleasant to the Hearer that is not easie to the Speaker; nor can i t be easily pronounced unless i t be heard w i t h delight. H e r e is an equilibrium t h e o r y of human diet and expression such as even n o w w e are o n l y striving t o w o r k o u t again f o r media after centuries o f fragmentation and specialism. Pope Pius X I I was deeply concerned that there be serious study o f the media today. O n February 17, 1950, he said: I t is not an exaggeration to say that the future of modern society and the stability of its inner life depend i n large part on the maintenance of an equilibrium between the strength of the techniques of communication and the capacity of the individual's own reaction. Failure i n this respect has f o r centuries been t y p i c a l and total f o r m a n k i n d . Subliminal and docile acceptance o f media impact has made them prisons w i t h o u t walls f o r their human users. As A . J L i e b l i n g remarked i n his b o o k The Press, 2L man is n o t free i f he cannot see where he is going, even i f he has a g u n t o help h i m get there. For each of the media is also a p o w e r f u l weapon

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w i t h w h i c h to clobber other media and other groups. T h e result is that the present age has been one o f multiple civil wars that :irc n o t limited to the w o r l d o f art and entertainment. I n War and Human Progress, Professor J. U . N e f declared: " T h e total wars of our time have been the result of a series o f intellectual misrakes . . . " I f the formative p o w e r i n the media are the media themselves, that raises a host o f large matters that can o n l y be mentioned here, although t h e y deserve volumes. N a m e l y , that technological media are staples or natural resources, exactly as are coal and cotton and o i l . A n y b o d y w i l l concede that society whose econo m y is dependent u p o n one or t w o major staples like c o t t o n , or grain, or lumber, or fish, or cattle is going to have some o b vious social patterns o f organization as a result. Stress o n a f e w major staples creates extreme instability i n the economy b u t great endurance i n the population. T h e pathos and humor o f the A m e r i can South are embedded i n such an economy of limited staples. For a society configured b y reliance o n a f e w commodities accepts them as a social b o n d quite as m u c h as the metropolis does the press. C o t t o n and o i l , like radio and T V , become " f i x e d charges" on the entire psychic life o f the c o m m u n i t y . A n d this pervasive fact creates the unique cultural flavor o f any society. I t pays through the nose and all its other senses f o r each staple that shapes its life. T h a t our human senses, o f w h i c h all media are extensions, are also fixed charges on our personal energies, and that t h e y also configure the awareness and experience o f each one o f us, m a y be perceived i n another connection mentioned b y the psychologist C. G . Jung: Every Roman was surrounded by slaves. The slave and his psychology flooded ancient Italy, and every Roman became inwardly, and of course unwittingly, a slave. Because living constantly in the atmosphere of slaves, he became infected through the unconscious w i t h their psychology. N o one can shield himself f r o m such an influence (Contributions to Analytical Psychology, London, 1928).

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" T h e rise of the w a l t z , " explained C u r t Sachs i n the World History of the Dance, "was a result of that longing f o r t r u t h , simplicity, closeness to nature, and p r i m i tivism, w h i c h the last t w o - t h i r d s o f the eighteenth century f u l f i l l e d . " I n the cent u r y of jazz w e are l i k e l y t o overlook the emergence of the waltz as a h o t and explosive human expression that broke t h r o u g h the f o r m a l feudal barriers of c o u r t l y and choral dance styles. T h e r e is a basic principle that distinguishes a h o t medium like radio f r o m a cool one like the telephone, or a hot med i u m like the movie f r o m a cool one like T V . A hot medium is one that extends one single sense i n " h i g h definition." H i g h definition is the state of being w e l l filled w i t h data. A photograph is, visually, " h i g h definition." A cartoon is " l o w definition," simply because v e r y little visual informat i o n is provided. Telephone is a cool medium, or one o f l o w definition, because

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t h e car is given a meager amount of i n f o r m a t i o n . A n d speech is :i c o o l medium o f l o w definition, because so little is given and so much has to be filled i n b y the listener. O n the other hand, h o t media do not leave so m u c h t o be filled i n or completed b y the :mdicnce. H o t media are, therefore, l o w i n participation, and c o o l media are high i n participation or completion b y the ;nidicnce. N a t u r a l l y , therefore, a hot medium like radio has v e r y different effects o n the user f r o m a cool m e d i u m like the telephone. A cool medium like hieroglyphic or ideogrammic w r i t t e n characters has v e r y different effects f r o m the h o t and explosive medium of the phonetic alphabet. T h e alphabet, w h e n pushed t o ;i high degree of abstract visual intensity, became t y p o g r a p h y . I l i e printed w o r d w i t h its specialist intensity burst the bonds o f medieval corporate guilds and monasteries, creating extreme individualist patterns o f enterprise and m o n o p o l y . B u t the t y p i c a l reversal occurred w h e n extremes o f m o n o p o l y b r o u g h t back t h e corporation, w i t h its impersonal empire over many lives. T h e hotting-up of the m e d i u m o f w r i t i n g t o repeatable p r i n t intensityl e d to nationalism and the religious wars o f the sixteenth century. T h e heavy and u n w i e l d y media, such as stone, are time binders. Used f o r w r i t i n g , they are v e r y cool indeed, and serve t o u n i f y the ;iges; whereas paper is a hot medium that serves t o u n i f y spaces horizontally, b o t h i n political and entertainment empires. A n y hot medium allows of less participation than a cool one, as a lecture makes f o r less participation than a seminar, and a book f o r less than dialogue. W i t h p r i n t m a n y earlier forms were excluded f r o m life and art, and many were given strange n e w intensity. But our o w n time is c r o w d e d w i t h examples o f the p r i n ciple that the hot f o r m excludes, and the cool one includes. W h e n ballerinas began t o dance o n their toes a c e n t u r y ago, i t was felt that the art o f the ballet had acquired a new " s p i r i t u a l i t y . " W i t h this new intensity, male figures were excluded f r o m ballet. T h e role of w o m e n had also become fragmented w i t h the advent of industrial specialism and the explosion o f home functions i n t o laundries, bakeries, and hospitals o n the periphery o f the c o m m u n i t y . Intensity or h i g h definition engenders specialism and

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fragmentation i n l i v i n g as i n entertainment, w h i c h explains w h y any intense experience must be " f o r g o t t e n , " "censored," and reduced t o a v e r y cool state before i t can be "learned" or assimilated. T h e Freudian "censor" is less o f a m o r a l f u n c t i o n than an indispensable c o n d i t i o n of learning. W e r e w e t o accept f u l l y and directly every shock t o our various structures of awareness, w e w o u l d soon be nervous wrecks, doing double-takes and pressing panic buttons every minute. T h e "censor" protects our central system of values, as i t does our physical nervous system b y simply cooling off the onset of experience a great deal. F o r m a n y people, this cooling system brings on a lifelong state o f psychic rigor mortis, or of somnambulism, particularly observable i n periods of new technology. A n example of the disruptive impact o f a h o t technology succeeding a cool one is given b y R o b e r t Theobald i n The Rich and the Poor. W h e n Australian natives were given steel axes b y the missionaries, their culture, based o n the stone axe, collapsed. T h e stone axe had n o t o n l y been scarce b u t had always been a basic status symbol o f male importance. T h e missionaries provided quantities of sharp steel axes and gave t h e m t o w o m e n and children. T h e men had even t o b o r r o w these f r o m the w o m e n , causing a collapse o f male d i g n i t y . A tribal and feudal hierarchy o f traditional k i n d collapses q u i c k l y w h e n i t meets any h o t m e d i u m of the mechanical, u n i f o r m , and repetitive k i n d . T h e m e d i u m of money or wheel or w r i t i n g , or any other f o r m of specialist speedu p of exchange and information, w i l l serve t o fragment a tribal structure. Similarly, a v e r y m u c h greater speed-up, such as occurs w i t h electricity, m a y serve t o restore a tribal pattern of intense involvement such as t o o k place w i t h the i n t r o d u c t i o n of radio i n Europe, and is n o w tending t o happen as a result o f T V i n America. Specialist technologies detribalize. T h e nonspecialist electric technology retribalizes. T h e process of upset resulting f r o m a new distribution of skills is accompanied b y m u c h culture lag i n w h i c h people feel compelled t o l o o k at new situations as i f they were o l d ones, and come u p w i t h ideas of "population explosion" i n an age of implosion. N e w t o n , i n an age o f clocks, managed to present the physical universe i n the image o f a clock.

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Mil poets like Blake were far ahead of N e w t o n i n their response i ilie challenge of the clock. Blake spoke o f the need to be delivered " f r o m single vision and N e w t o n ' s sleep," k n o w i n g v e r y w e l l that N e w t o n ' s response t o the challenge o f the new mechan i s m was itself merely a mechanical repetition of the challenge. Make saw N e w t o n and L o c k e and others as hypnotized Narcissus iv pes quite unable t o meet the challenge of mechanism. W . B. Yeats gave the f u l l Blakean version of N e w t o n and Locke i n a famous epigram: Locke sank into a swoon; The garden died; God took the spinning jenny Out of his side. Yeats presents Locke, the philosopher o f mechanical and lineal associationism, as hypnotized b y his o w n image. T h e "garden," or unified consciousness, ended. Eighteenth-century man g o t an extension of himself i n the f o r m o f the spinning machine that Yeats endows w i t h its f u l l sexual significance. W o m a n , herself, is thus seen as a technological extension of man's being. Blake's counterstrategy f o r his age was t o meet mechanism w i t h organic m y t h . T o d a y , deep i n the electric age, organic m y t h is itself a simple and automatic response capable o f mathematical formulation and expression, w i t h o u t any o f the imaginative perception of Blake about i t . H a d he encountered the electric age, Blake w o u l d n o t have met its challenge w i t h a mere repetition o f electric f o r m . F o r m y t h is the instant vision o f a complex process that ordinarily extends over a l o n g period. M y t h is contraction or implosion o f any process, and the instant speed of electricity confers the m y t h i c dimension o n ordinary industrial and social action today. W e live m y t h i c a l l y b u t continue to t h i n k fragmentarily and on single planes. Scholars today are acutely aware of a discrepancy between their ways of treating subjects and the subject itself. Scriptural scholars o f b o t h the O l d and N e w Testaments f r e q u e n t l y say that while their treatment must be linear, the subject is not. T h e subject treats o f the relations between G o d and man, and between

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G o d and the w o r l d , and o f the relations between man and his neighbor—all these subsist together, and act and react upon one another at the same time. T h e H e b r e w and Eastern mode o f thought tackles problem and resolution, at the outset o f a discussion, i n a w a y typical o f oral societies i n general. T h e entire message is then traced and retraced, again and again, on the rounds o f a concentric spiral w i t h seeming redundancy. One can stop anywhere after the first f e w sentences and have the f u l l message, i f one is prepared t o " d i g " i t . T h i s k i n d o f plan seems to have inspired Frank L l o y d W r i g h t i n designing the Guggenheim A r t G a l l e r y o n a spiral, concentric basis. I t is a redundant f o r m inevitable t o the electric age, i n w h i c h the concentric pattern is imposed b y the instant quality, and overlay i n depth, of electric speed. B u t the concentric w i t h its endless intersection of planes is necessary f o r insight. I n fact, i t is the technique of insight, and as such is necessary f o r media study, since no m e d i u m has its meaning o r existence alone, b u t o n l y i n constant interplay w i t h other media. T h e n e w electric structuring and configuring o f life more and more encounters the o l d lineal and fragmentary procedures and tools o f analysis f r o m the mechanical age. M o r e and more w e t u r n f r o m the content of messages t o study total effect. Kenneth Boulding p u t this matter i n The Image b y saying, " T h e meaning o f a message is the change w h i c h i t produces i n the image." Concern w i t h effect rather than meaning is a basic change of our electric time, f o r effect involves the total situation, and n o t a single level o f i n f o r m a t i o n movement. Strangely, there is recognition o f this matter o f effect rather than i n f o r m a t i o n i n the British idea o f libel: " T h e greater the t r u t h , the greater the l i b e l . " T h e effect o f electric technology had at first been anxiety. N o w i t appears t o create boredom. W e have been t h r o u g h the three stages o f alarm, resistance, and exhaustion that occur i n every disease or stress o f life, whether individual or collective. A t least, our exhausted slump after the first encounter w i t h the electric has inclined us to expect n e w problems. H o w e v e r , backw a r d countries that have experienced little permeation w i t h our o w n mechanical and specialist culture are m u c h better able t o con-

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f r o n t and to understand electric technology. N o t o n l y have backward and nonindustrial cultures no specialist habits t o overcome i n their encounter w i t h electromagnetism, b u t they have still m u c h of their traditional oral culture that has the total, unified " f i e l d " character of our new electromagnetism. O u r o l d industrialized areas, having eroded their oral traditions automatically, are i n the position o f having t o rediscover them i n order to cope w i t h the electric age. I n terms of the theme of media hot and cold, backward countries are cool, and w e are hot. T h e " c i t y slicker" is hot, and the rustic is cool. B u t i n terms of the reversal o f procedures and values i n the electric age, the past mechanical time was hot, and we of the T V age are cool. T h e waltz was a hot, fast mechanical dance suited to the industrial time i n its moods of pomp and c i r cumstance. I n contrast, the T w i s t is a cool, involved and chatty f o r m of improvised gesture. T h e jazz o f the period of the hot new media o f movie and radio was hot jazz. Y e t jazz of itself tends to be a casual dialogue f o r m of dance quite lacking i n the repetitive and mechanical forms of the waltz. Cool jazz came i n quite naturally after the first impact of radio and movie had been absorbed. I n the special Russian issue o f Life magazine f o r September 13, 1963, i t is mentioned i n Russian restaurants and night clubs, " t h o u g h the Charleston is tolerated, the T w i s t is taboo." A l l this is to say that a c o u n t r y i n the process o f industrialization is inclined to regard hot jazz as consistent w i t h its developing p r o grams. T h e cool and involved f o r m o f the T w i s t , on the other hand, w o u l d strike such a culture at once as retrograde and i n compatible w i t h its n e w mechanical stress. T h e Charleston, w i t h its aspect of a mechanical doll agitated b y strings, appears i n Russia as an avant-garde f o r m . W e , on the other hand, find the avantgarde i n the cool and the primitive, w i t h its promise o f depth i n volvement and integral expression. T h e " h a r d " sell and the " h o t " line become mere comedy i n the T V age, and the death o f all the salesmen at one stroke of the T V axe has turned the h o t American culture into a cool one that is quite unacquainted w i t h itself. America, i n fact, w o u l d seem to

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be l i v i n g t h r o u g h the reverse process that Margaret Mead described i n Time magazine (September 4, 1954): " T h e r e are too many complaints about society having t o move too fast t o keep up w i t h the machine. There is great advantage i n m o v i n g fast i f y o u move completely, i f social, educational, and recreational changes keep pace. Y o u must change the w h o l e pattern at once and the w h o l e group together—and the people themselves must decide t o m o v e . " Margaret Mead is t h i n k i n g here of change as u n i f o r m speedup of m o t i o n or a u n i f o r m h o t t i n g - u p of temperatures i n backw a r d societies. W e are certainly c o m i n g w i t h i n conceivable range o f a w o r l d automatically controlled to the p o i n t where w e could say, "Six hours less radio i n Indonesia next week or there w i l l be a great falling off i n literary attention." O r , " W e can program t w e n t y more hours o f T V i n South A f r i c a next week t o cool d o w n the tribal temperature raised b y radio last week. W h o l e cultures could n o w be programmed t o keep their emotional climate stable i n the same w a y that w e have begun t o k n o w somet h i n g about maintaining equilibrium i n the commercial economies o f the w o r l d . I n the merely personal and private sphere w e are often reminded o f h o w changes o f tone and attitude are demanded of different times and seasons i n order to keep situations i n hand. British clubmen, f o r the sake o f companionship and amiability, have l o n g excluded the h o t topics of religion and politics f r o m mention inside the h i g h l y participational club. I n the same vein, W . H . A u d e n w r o t e , " . . . this season the man o f g o o d w i l l w i l l wear his heart u p his sleeve, n o t o n i t . . . . the honest manly style is today suited o n l y t o I a g o " ( I n t r o d u c t i o n t o John Betjeman's Slick But Not Streamlined). I n the Renaissance, as p r i n t technology hotted up the social milieu t o a v e r y h i g h point, the gentleman and the courtier (Hamlet—Mercutio style) adopted, i n contrast, the casual and cool nonchalance o f the p l a y f u l and superior being. T h e Iago allusion o f A u d e n reminds us that Iago was the alter ego and assistant of the intensely earnest and v e r y non-nonchalant General Othello. I n imitation of the earnest and f o r t h r i g h t general, Iago hotted u p his o w n image and w o r e his

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heart on his sleeve, u n t i l General Othello read h i m loud and clear as "honest Iago," a man after his o w n g r i m l y earnest heart. T h r o u g h o u t The City in History, Lewis M u m f o r d favors the cool or casually structured towns over the hot and intensely iillcd-in cities. T h e great period of Athens, he feels, was one d u r i n g w h i c h most of the democratic habits o f village life and participation still obtained. T h e n burst f o r t h the f u l l variety o f human expression and exploration such as was later impossible i n h i g h l y developed urban centers. For the h i g h l y developed situation is, b y definition, l o w i n opportunities of participation, and rigorous in its demands of specialist fragmentation f r o m those w h o w o u l d control i t . For example, w h a t is k n o w n as " j o b enlargement" today in business and i n management consists i n allowing the employee more freedom to discover and define his f u n c t i o n . Likewise, i n reading a detective story the reader participates as co-author simply because so m u c h has been l e f t out o f the narrative. T h e open-mesh silk stocking is far more sensuous than the smooth n y l o n , just because the eye must act as hand i n filling i n and completing the image, exactly as i n the mosaic of the T V image. Douglas Cater i n The Fourth Branch of Government tells h o w the men of the W a s h i n g t o n press bureaus delighted t o c o m plete or fill i n the blank o f Calvin Coolidge's personality. Because he was so like a mere cartoon, they f e l t the urge t o complete his image f o r h i m and his public. I t is instructive that the press applied the w o r d " c o o l " to Cal. I n the v e r y sense o f a cool medium, Calv i n Coolidge was so lacking i n any articulation o f data i n his public image that there was o n l y one w o r d f o r h i m . H e was real cool. I n the hot 1920s, the hot press m e d i u m f o u n d Cal v e r y cool and rejoiced i n his lack of image, since i t compelled the participation o f the press i n filling i n an image o f h i m f o r the public. B y contrast, F . D . R . was a hot press agent, himself a rival of the newspaper m e d i u m and one w h o delighted i n scoring off the press on the rival h o t medium o f radio. Q u i t e i n contrast, Jack Paar ran a cool show f o r the cool T V medium, and became a r i v a l f o r the patrons of the n i g h t spots and their allies i n the gossip columns. Jack Paar's w a r w i t h the gossip columnists was a w e i r d example of clash between a hot and cold medium such as had

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occurred w i t h the "scandal o f the rigged T V quiz shows." T h e r i v a l r y between the hot press and radio media, o n one hand, and T V o n the other, f o r the h o t ad buck, served t o confuse and t o overheat the issues i n the affair that pointlessly involved Charles van D o r e n . A n Associated Press story f r o m Santa Monica, California, August 9, 1962, reported h o w Nearly 100 traffic violators watched a police traffic accident film today to atone for their violations. T w o had to be treated for nausea and shock. . . . Viewers were offered a $5.00 reduction i n fines i f they agreed to see the movie, Signal 30, made by Ohio State police. I t showed twisted wreckage and mangled bodies and recorded the screams of accident victims. W h e t h e r the h o t film m e d i u m using hot content w o u l d cool off the h o t drivers is a m o o t point. B u t i t does concern any understanding o f media. T h e effect o f h o t media treatment cannot include m u c h empathy or participation at any time. I n this connection an insurance ad that featured D a d i n an i r o n l u n g surrounded b y a j o y f u l f a m i l y g r o u p d i d more t o strike terror i n t o the reader than all the w a r n i n g w i s d o m i n the w o r l d . I t is a question that arises i n connection w i t h capital punishment. Is a severe penalty the best deterrent t o serious crime? W i t h regard t o the bomb and the cold w a r , is the threat of massive retaliation the most effective means t o peace? Is i t n o t evident i n every human situation that is pushed to a p o i n t o f saturation that some precipitat i o n occurs? W h e n all the available resources and energies have been played u p i n an organism or i n any structure there is some k i n d o f reversal of pattern. T h e spectacle of b r u t a l i t y used as deterrent can brutalize. B r u t a l i t y used i n sports may humanize under some conditions, at least. B u t w i t h regard t o the bomb and retaliation as deterrent, i t is obvious that numbness is the result of any prolonged terror, a fact that was discovered w h e n the f a l l out shelter program was broached. T h e price of eternal vigilance is indifference. Nevertheless, i t makes all the difference whether a hot medium is used i n a hot or a cool culture. T h e hot radio medium

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used i n cool or nonliterate cultures has a violent effect, quite unlike its effect, say i n England or America, where radio is felt as entertainment. A cool or l o w literacy culture cannot accept hot media like movies or radio as entertainment. T h e y are, at least, as radically upsetting f o r them as the cool T V medium has proved to be f o r our high literacy w o r l d . A n d as f o r the cool w a r and the hot bomb scare, the cultural strategy that is desperately needed is humor and play. I t is play that cools off the hot situations of actual life b y m i m i n g them. Competitive sports between Russia and the W e s t w i l l hardly serve that purpose o f relaxation. Such sports are inflammatory, i t is plain. A n d w h a t w e consider entertainment or f u n i n our media inevitably appears as violent political agitation t o a cool culture. One w a y t o spot the basic difference between hot and cold media uses is to compare and contrast a broadcast o f a symphony performance w i t h a broadcast of a symphony rehearsal. T w o of the finest shows ever released b y the CBC were o f Glenn Gould's procedure i n recording piano recitals, and I g o r Stravinsky's rehearsing the T o r o n t o symphony i n some of his new w o r k . A cool medium like T V , w h e n really used, demands this involvement i n process. T h e neat t i g h t package is suited t o hot media, like radio and gramophone. Francis Bacon never tired of contrasting h o t and cool prose. W r i t i n g i n "methods" or complete packages, he contrasted w i t h w r i t i n g i n aphorisms, or single observations such as "Revenge is a k i n d of w i l d justice." T h e passive consumer wants packages, b u t those, he suggested, w h o are concerned i n pursuing knowledge and i n seeking causes w i l l resort to aphorisms, just because they are incomplete and require participation i n depth. T h e principle that distinguishes hot and cold media is perf e c t l y embodied i n the f o l k w i s d o m : " M e n seldom make passes at girls w h o wear glasses." Glasses intensify the o u t w a r d - g o i n g vision, and f i l l i n the feminine image exceedingly, M a r i o n the Librarian notwithstanding. D a r k glasses, o n the other hand, create the inscrutable and inaccessible image that invites a great deal o f participation and completion. A g a i n , i n a visual and h i g h l y literate culture, w h e n w e meet a person f o r the first time his visual appearance dims out the sound

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of the name, so that i n self-defense w e add: " H o w do y o u spell y o u r name?" Whereas, i n an ear culture, the sound of a man's name is the overwhelming fact, as Joyce k n e w w h e n he said i n Finnegans Wake, " W h o gave y o u that n u m b ? " F o r the name of a man is a n u m b i n g b l o w f r o m w h i c h he never recovers. A n o t h e r vantage p o i n t f r o m w h i c h t o test the difference between h o t and cold media is the practical joke. T h e hot literary medium excludes the practical and participant aspect o f the joke so completely that Constance Rourke, i n her American Humor, considers i t as no joke at all. T o literary people, the practical joke w i t h its total physical involvement is as distasteful as the p u n that derails us f r o m the smooth and u n i f o r m progress that is t y p o graphic order. Indeed, t o the l i t e r a r y person w h o is quite unaware of the intensely abstract nature of the typographic medium, i t is the grosser and participant forms o f art that seem " h o t , " and the abstract and intensely literary f o r m that seems " c o o l . " " Y o u may perceive, M a d a m , " said D r . Johnson, w i t h a pugilistic smile, " t h a t I am w e l l - b r e d t o a degree of needless scrupulosity." A n d D r . Johnson was r i g h t i n supposing that " w e l l - b r e d " had come to mean a white-shirted stress o n attire that rivaled the r i g o r of the printed page. " C o m f o r t " consists i n abandoning a visual arrangement i n favor of one that permits casual participation of the senses, a state that is excluded w h e n any one sense, b u t especially the visual sense, is hotted up to the p o i n t of dominant command of a situation. O n the other hand, i n experiments i n w h i c h all outer sensat i o n is w i t h d r a w n , the subject begins a furious f i l l - i n or completion of senses that is sheer hallucination. So the h o t t i n g - u p o f one sense tends to effect hypnosis, and the cooling of all senses tends to result i n hallucination.

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A headline f o r June 21, 1963, read: WASHINGTON-MOSCOW HOT T O O P E N I N 60

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The Times of London Service, Geneva: The agreement to establish a direct communication link between Washington and Moscow for emergencies was signed here yesterday by Charles Stelle of the United States and Semyon Tsarapkin of the Soviet Union. . . . The link, known as the hot line, w i l l be opened within sixty days, according to U.S. officials. I t w i l l make use of leased commercial circuits, one cable and the other wireless, using teleprinter equipment. T h e decision t o use the hot printed m e d i u m i n place of the cool, participational, telephone m e d i u m is unfortunate i n the extreme. N o doubt the decision was p r o m p t e d b y the literary bias o f the W e s t f o r the printed f o r m , on the g r o u n d that i t is more impersonal than the telephone. T h e printed f o r m has quite different i m -

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plications i n M o s c o w f r o m w h a t i t has i n Washington. So w i t h the telephone. T h e Russians' love o f this instrument, so congenial t o their oral traditions, is o w i n g t o the r i c h nonvisual involvement i t affords. T h e Russian uses the telephone f o r the sort o f effects w e associate w i t h the eager conversation o f the lapel-gripper whose face is twelve inches away. B o t h telephone and teleprinter as amplifications o f the u n conscious cultural bias o f Moscow, o n one hand, and of Washingt o n , o n the other, are invitations t o monstrous misunderstandings. T h e Russian bugs rooms and spies b y ear, finding this quite natural. H e is outraged b y our visual spying, however, f i n d i n g this quite unnatural. T h e principle that d u r i n g the stages of their development all things appear under forms opposite t o those that t h e y finally present is an ancient doctrine. Interest i n the p o w e r o f things t o reverse themselves b y evolution is evident i n a great diversity of observations, sage and jocular. Alexander Pope w r o t e Vice is a monster of such frightful mien As to be hated needs but to be seen; But seen too oft, familiar w i t h its face, W e first endure, then pity, then embrace. A caterpillar gazing at the b u t t e r f l y is supposed t o have remarked. " W a a l , y o u ' l l never catch me i n one o f those d u r n things." A t another level w e have seen i n this century the changeover f r o m the debunking o f traditional myths and legends to their reverent study. A s w e begin t o react i n depth to the social l i f e and problems o f our global village, w e become reactionaries. Involvement that goes w i t h our instant technologies transforms the most "socially conscious" people i n t o conservatives. W h e n Sputnik had first gone i n t o o r b i t a schoolteacher asked her second-graders t o w r i t e some verse o f the subject. One c h i l d wrote: The stars are so big, The earth is so small, Stay as you are.

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W i t h man his knowledge and the process o f obtaining knowledge arc o f equal magnitude. O u r ability t o apprehend galaxies and subatomic structures, as w e l l , is a movement of faculties that include and transcend them. T h e second-grader w h o w r o t e the words above lives i n a w o r l d m u c h vaster than any w h i c h a scieni ist today has instruments t o measure, or concepts to describe. A s W . B. Yeats w r o t e of this reversal, " T h e visible w o r l d is no longer a reality and the unseen w o r l d is no longer a dream." Associated w i t h this transformation o f the real w o r l d i n t o science f i c t i o n is the reversal n o w proceeding apace, b y w h i c h the Western w o r l d is g o i n g Eastern, even as the East goes W e s t e r n . Joyce encoded this reciprocal reverse i n his c r y p t i c phrase: The West shall shake the East awake W h i l e ye have the night for morn. T h e title of his Finnegans Wake is a set o f multi-leveled puns o n the reversal b y w h i c h W e s t e r n man enters his tribal, or F i n n , cycle once more, f o l l o w i n g the track o f the o l d F i n n , b u t w i d e awake this time as w e re-enter the tribal night. I t is like o u r contemporary consciousness of the Unconscious. T h e stepping-up o f speed f r o m the mechanical to the instant electric f o r m reverses explosion into implosion. I n our present electric age the i m p l o d i n g or contracting energies o f our w o r l d n o w clash w i t h the o l d expansionist and traditional patterns o f organization. U n t i l recently our institutions and arrangements, social, political, and economic, had shared a one-way pattern. W e still t h i n k of i t as "explosive," o r expansive; and t h o u g h i t no longer obtains, w e still talk about the population explosion and the explosion i n learning. I n fact, i t is n o t the increase of numbers i n the w o r l d that creates our concern w i t h population. Rather, i t is the fact that everybody i n the w o r l d has t o live i n the utmost p r o x i m i t y created b y our electric involvement i n one another's lives. I n education, likewise, i t is not the increase i n numbers of those seeking to learn that creates the crisis. O u r new concern w i t h education f o l l o w s u p o n the changeover t o an interrelation in knowledge, where before the separate subjects o f the curr i c u l u m had stood apart f r o m each other. Departmental sover-

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eignties have melted away as r a p i d l y as national sovereignties under conditions o f electric speed. Obsession w i t h the older patterns o f mechanical, one-way expansion f r o m centers t o margins is no longer relevant to our electric w o r l d . E l e c t r i c i t y does not centralize, b u t decentralizes. I t is like the difference between a railway system and an electric g r i d system: the one requires r a i l heads and b i g urban centers. Electric power, equally available i n the farmhouse and the Executive Suite, permits any place to be a center, and does n o t require large aggregations. T h i s reverse pattern appeared quite early i n electrical "labor-saving" devices, whether a toaster or washing machine o r vacuum cleaner. Instead of saving w o r k , these devices p e r m i t everybody t o do his o w n w o r k . W h a t the nineteenth c e n t u r y had delegated t o servants and housemaids w e n o w do f o r ourselves. T h i s principle applies in toto i n the electric age. I n politics, i t permits Castro t o exist as independent nucleus or center. I t w o u l d p e r m i t Quebec t o leave the Canadian union i n a w a y quite inconceivable under the regime; o f the railways. T h e railways require a u n i f o r m political and economic space. O n the other hand, airplane and radio p e r m i t the u t most discontinuity and diversity i n spatial organization. T o d a y the great principle o f classical physics and economics and political science, namely that o f the divisibility of each process, has reversed itself b y sheer extension into the unified field t h e o r y ; and automation i n i n d u s t r y replaces the divisibility of process w i t h the organic interlacing o f all functions i n the c o m plex. T h e electric tape succeeds the assembly line. I n the new electric A g e o f I n f o r m a t i o n and programmed p r o d u c t i o n , commodities themselves assume more and more the character o f i n f o r m a t i o n , although this t r e n d appears m a i n l y i n the increasing advertising budget. Significantly, i t is those c o m modities that are most used i n social communication, cigarettes, cosmetics, and soap (cosmetic removers) that bear m u c h of the burden o f the upkeep o f the media i n general. As electric i n f o r m a t i o n levels rise, almost any k i n d o f material w i l l serve any k i n d o f need or f u n c t i o n , f o r c i n g the intellectual more and more i n t o the role of social command and into the service o f production.

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I t was Julien Benda's Great Betrayal that helped to c l a r i f y the n e w situation i n w h i c h the intellectual suddenly holds the w h i p hand i n society. Benda saw that the artists and intellectuals w h o had l o n g been alienated f r o m power, and w h o since V o l t a i r e had been i n opposition, had n o w been drafted f o r service i n the highest echelons of decision-making. T h e i r great betrayal was that they had surrendered their autonomy and had become the f l u n kies o f power, as the atomic physicist at the present moment is the f l u n k y o f the w a r lords. H a d Benda k n o w n his history, he w o u l d have been less angry and less surprised. F o r i t has always been the role o f intelligentsia to act as liaison and as mediators between o l d and new power groups. M o s t familiar o f such groups is the case of the Greek slaves, w h o were f o r l o n g the educators and confidential clerks of the Roman power. A n d i t is precisely this servile role of the confidential clerk to the tycoon—commercial, m i l i t a r y , or p o l i t i cal—that the educator has continued t o play i n the W e s t e r n w o r l d u n t i l the present moment. I n England " t h e A n g r i e s " were a g r o u p of such clerks w h o had suddenly emerged f r o m the lower echelons b y the educational escape hatch. As they emerged into the upper w o r l d of power, they f o u n d that the air was n o t at all fresh or bracing. B u t they lost their nerve even quicker than Bernard Shaw lost his. L i k e Shaw, they q u i c k l y settled d o w n t o w h i m s y and to the cultivation of entertainment values. I n his Study of History, Toynbee notes a great many reversals o f f o r m and dynamic, as w h e n , i n the middle o f the f o u r t h century A . D . , the Germans i n the Roman service began a b r u p t l y t o be p r o u d o f their tribal names and t o retain them. Such a moment marked new confidence b o r n of saturation w i t h Roman values, and i t was a moment marked b y the complementary Roman swing t o w a r d p r i m i t i v e values. ( A s Americans saturate w i t h European values, especially since T V , t h e y begin t o insist u p o n American coach lamps, h i t c h i n g posts, and colonial kitchenware as c u l t u r a l objects.) Just as the barbarians g o t t o the t o p of the Roman social ladder, the Romans themselves were disposed t o assume the dress and manners of tribesmen out of the same frivolous and snobbish spirit that attached the French c o u r t o f

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Louis X V I t o the w o r l d of shepherds and shepherdesses. I t w o u l d have seemed a natural moment f o r the intellectuals t o have taken over w h i l e the governing class was t o u r i n g Disneyland, as i t were. So i t must have appeared to M a r x and his followers. B u t they reckoned w i t h o u t understanding the dynamics of the new media o f communication. M a r x based his analysis most u n t i m e l y on the machine, just as the telegraph and other implosive forms began t o reverse the mechanical dynamic. T h e present chapter is concerned w i t h showing that i n any medium or structure there is w h a t Kenneth B o u l d i n g calls a "break boundary at w h i c h the system suddenly changes into another o r passes some p o i n t o f no r e t u r n i n its dynamic processes." Several such "break boundaries" w i l l be discussed later, including the one f r o m stasis to m o t i o n , and f r o m the mechanical t o the organic i n the pictorial w o r l d . One effect o f the static photo had been t o suppress the conspicuous consumption o f the r i c h , b u t the effect o f the speed-up o f the photo had been t o provide fantasy riches f o r the poor o f the entire globe. T o d a y the road beyond its break boundary turns cities into highways, and the h i g h w a y proper takes on a continuous urban character. A n o t h e r characteristic reversal after passing a road break boundary is that the c o u n t r y ceases t o be the center of all w o r k , and the c i t y ceases t o be the center o f leisure. I n fact, i m p r o v e d roads and transport have reversed the ancient pattern and made cities the centers o f w o r k and the c o u n t r y the place o f leisure and of recreation. Earlier, the increase of traffic that came w i t h money and roads had ended the static tribal state (as T o y n b e e calls the nomadic food-gathering c u l t u r e ) . T y p i c a l o f the reversing that occurs at break boundaries is the paradox that nomadic mobile man, the hunter and food-gatherer, is socially static. O n the other hand, sedentary, specialist man is dynamic, explosive, progressive. T h e n e w magnetic or w o r l d c i t y w i l l be static and iconic or i n clusive. I n the ancient w o r l d the intuitive awareness o f break b o u n d aries as points o f reversal and o f no r e t u r n was embodied i n the Greek idea of hubris, w h i c h T o y n b e e presents i n his Study of

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/ lisfory, under the head o f " T h e Nemesis o f C r e a t i v i t y " and " T h e U r v a s a l o f Roles." T h e Greek dramatists presented the idea o f u e a i i v i t y as creating, also, its o w n k i n d o f blindness, as i n the rase of Oedipus Rex, w h o solved the riddle o f the Sphinx. I t was us if the Greeks f e l t that the penalty f o r one break-through was a j H iicral sealing-off o f awareness t o the total field. I n a Chinese woik—The Way and Its Power ( A . W a l e y translation)—there is u scries o f instances o f the overheated medium, the overextended man or culture, and the peripety or reversal that inevitably f o l lows:

I Ic who stands on tiptoe does not stand firm; I Ie who takes the longest strides does not walk the fastest . . . I ie who boasts of what he w i l l do succeeds i n nothing; I ic who is proud of his w o r k achieves nothing that endures. One o f the most c o m m o n causes o f breaks i n any system is the cross-fertilization w i t h another system, such as happened t o p r i n t with the steam press, or w i t h radio and movies ( t h a t yielded the ialkies). T o d a y w i t h m i c r o f i l m and micro-cards, n o t t o m e n t i o n electric memories, the p r i n t e d w o r d assumes again m u c h of the handicraft character o f a manuscript. B u t p r i n t i n g f r o m movable type was, itself, the major break b o u n d a r y i n the h i s t o r y o f phonetic literacy, just as the phonetic alphabet had been the break boundary between tribal and individualist man. T h e endless reversals or break boundaries passed i n the i n t e r play o f the structures o f bureaucracy and enterprise include the point at w h i c h individuals began t o be held responsible and accountable f o r their "private actions." T h a t was the moment o f i he collapse of tribal collective a u t h o r i t y . Centuries later, w h e n further explosion and expansion had exhausted the powers o f private action, corporate enterprise invented the idea o f Public l)ebt, making the individual privately accountable f o r g r o u p action. A s the nineteenth c e n t u r y heated u p the mechanical and dissociative procedures o f technical fragmentation, the entire attention o f men t u r n e d t o the associative and the corporate. In the first great age o f the substitution o f machine f o r human

40/Understanding

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t o i l Carlyle and the Pre-Raphaelites promulgated the doctrine of Work as a mystical social communion, and millionaires like Ruskin and M o r r i s toiled like navvies f o r esthetic reasons. M a r x was an impressionable recipient of these doctrines. M o s t bizarre o f all the reversals i n the great V i c t o r i a n age o f mechanization and h i g h moral tone is the counter-strategy o f Lewis Carroll and E d w a r d Lear, whose nonsense has proved exceedingly durable. W h i l e the L o r d Cardigans were taking their blood baths i n the V a l l e y of Death, G i l b e r t and Sullivan were announcing that the boundary break had been passed.

4 Tha PoHrfAt IIIU UallgCL

LOVGr Narcissus as -j . Narcosis

41

T h e Greek m y t h o f Narcissus is directly concerned w i t h a fact o f human experir d Narcissus indicates. I t is f r o m the Greek w o r d narcosis, or n u m b -

e n c e ?

a s

t n e

W O

" ^ y°ut^ Narcissus mistook his o w n reflection i n the water f o r another person. i f himself b y m i r r o r

n e S S

T h i s

e

e

x

t

e

n

s

o

n

0

numbed his perceptions u n t i l he became the servomechanism o f his o w n extended or repeated image. T h e n y m p h Echo tried t o w i n his love w i t h fragments of his o w n speech, b u t i n vain. H e was n u m b . H e had adapted t o his extension o f himself and had become a closed system. N o w the p o i n t o f this m y t h is the fact that men at once become fascinated b y any extension o f themselves i n any material other than themselves. T h e r e have been cynics w h o insisted that men f a l l deepest i n love w i t h w o m e n w h o give t h e m back their o w n image. Be that as i t may, the w i s d o m o f the Narcissus m y t h does n o t convey any idea that Narcissus f e l l

42/Understanding

Media

i n love w i t h a n y t h i n g he regarded as himself. Obviously he w o u l d have had v e r y different feelings about the image had he k n o w n i t was an extension or repetition o f himself. I t is, perhaps, indicative o f the bias o f our intensely technological and, therefore, narcotic culture that w e have l o n g interpreted the Narcissus story t o mean that he f e l l i n love w i t h himself, that he imagined the reflection t o be Narcissus! Physiologically there are abundant reasons f o r an extension o f ourselves i n v o l v i n g us i n a state of numbness. Medical researchers like Hans Selye and A d o l p h e Jonas h o l d that all extensions of ourselves, i n sickness or i n health, are attempts t o maintain equil i b r i u m . A n y extension o f ourselves they regard as "autoamputatdon," and t h e y f i n d that the autoamputative p o w e r or strategy is resorted t o b y the b o d y w h e n the perceptual p o w e r cannot locate o r avoid the cause o f i r r i t a t i o n . O u r language has m a n y expressions that indicate this self-amputation that is imposed b y various pressures. W e speak o f " w a n t i n g to j u m p o u t of m y s k i n " or o f " g o i n g o u t of m y m i n d , " being " d r i v e n b a t t y " or " f l i p p i n g m y l i d . " A n d w e often create artificial situations that rival the irritations and stresses o f real l i f e under controlled conditions o f sport and play. W h i l e i t was no part o f the intention o f Jonas and Selye t o provide an explanation of human invention and technology, t h e y have given us a t h e o r y o f disease ( d i s c o m f o r t ) that goes far t o explain w h y man is impelled t o extend various parts o f his b o d y b y a k i n d o f autoamputation. I n the physical stress o f superstimu¬ lation o f various kinds, the central nervous system acts t o protect itself b y a strategy o f amputation or isolation o f the offending organ, sense, or f u n c t i o n . T h u s , the stimulus t o n e w invention is the stress of acceleration o f pace and increase o f load. For example, i n the case o f the wheel as an extension o f the f o o t , the pressure o f new burdens resulting f r o m the acceleration of exchange b y w r i t t e n and monetary media was the immediate occasion o f the extension or " a m p u t a t i o n " of this f u n c t i o n f r o m our bodies. T h e wheel as a counter-irritant t o increased burdens, i n t u r n , brings about a new intensity of action b y its amplification o f a separate or isolated f u n c t i o n (the feet i n r o t a t i o n ) . Such

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jimplification is bearable b y the nervous system o n l y t h r o u g h n u m b ness or b l o c k i n g o f perception. T h i s is the sense o f the Narcissus m y t h . T h e y o u n g man's image is a self-amputation or extension induced b y i r r i t a t i n g pressures. As counter-irritant, the image produces a generalized numbness or shock that declines recognition. Self-amputation forbids self-recognition. T h e principle o f self-amputation as an immediate relief of strain on the central nervous system applies v e r y readily t o the origin o f the media o f communication f r o m speech t o computer. Physiologically, the central nervous system, that electric netw o r k that coordinates the various media o f our senses, plays the c hief role. Whatever threatens its f u n c t i o n must be contained, localized, or cut off, even t o the total removal of the offending organ. T h e f u n c t i o n o f the b o d y , as a g r o u p of sustaining and protective organs f o r the central nervous system, is t o act as buffers against sudden variations o f stimulus i n the physical and social environment. Sudden social failure or shame is a shock that some may "take t o heart" or that may cause muscular disturbance in general, signaling f o r the person t o w i t h d r a w f r o m the threatening situation. T h e r a p y , whether physical or social, is a coimter-irritant that aids i n that equilibrium o f the physical organs w h i c h protect the central nervous system. Whereas pleasure is a counter-irritant (e.g., sports, entertainment, and alcohol), c o m f o r t is the removal of irritants. B o t h pleasure and c o m f o r t are strategies o f equilibr i u m f o r the central nervous system. W i t h the arrival o f electric technology, man extended, o r set outside himself, a live model of the central nervous system i t self. T o the degree that this is so, i t is a development that suggests a desperate and suicidal autoamputation, as i f the central nervous system c o u l d no longer depend o n the physical organs t o be protective buffers against the slings and arrows of outrageous mechanism. I t c o u l d w e l l be that the successive mechanizations o f the various physical organs since the invention of p r i n t i n g have made too violent and superstimulated a social experience f o r the central nervous system t o endure. I n relation t o that o n l y too plausible cause of such develop-

44/'Understanding

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ment, w e can r e t u r n t o the Narcissus theme. F o r i f Narcissus is numbed b y his self-amputated image, there is a v e r y good reason f o r the numbness. T h e r e is a close parallel of response between the patterns o f physical and psychic trauma or shock. A person suddenly deprived of loved ones and a person w h o drops a f e w feet unexpectedly w i l l b o t h register shock. B o t h the loss o f f a m i l y and a physical fall are extreme instances o f amputations of the self. Shock induces a generalized numbness or an increased threshold t o all types o f perception. T h e v i c t i m seems immune to pain or sense. Battle shock created b y violent noise has been adapted f o r dental use i n the device k n o w n as audiac. T h e patient puts o n headphones and turns a dial raising the noise level t o the point that he feels no pain f r o m the d r i l l . T h e selection o f a single sense f o r intense stimulus, or o f a single extended, isolated, o r " a m putated" sense i n technology, is i n part the reason f o r the n u m b i n g effect that technology as such has on its makers and users. For the central nervous system rallies a response of general numbness to the challenge o f specialized i r r i t a t i o n . T h e person w h o falls suddenly experiences i m m u n i t y to all pain or sensory stimuli because the central nervous system has t o be protected f r o m any intense thrust o f sensation. O n l y gradually does he regain normal sensitivity t o sights and sounds, at w h i c h time he m a y begin t o tremble and perspire and t o react as he w o u l d have done i f the central nervous system had been prepared i n advance f o r the fall that occurred unexpectedly. Depending o n w h i c h sense or f a c u l t y is extended technologically, or "autoamputated," the "closure" or equilibrium-seeking among the other senses is f a i r l y predictable. I t is w i t h the senses as i t is w i t h color. Sensation is always 100 per cent, and a color is always 100 per cent color. B u t the ratio among the components i n the sensation or the color can differ infinitely. Y e t i f sound, f o r example, is intensified, t o u c h and taste and sight are affected at once. T h e effect o f radio o n literate or visual man was to reawaken his tribal memories, and the effect o f sound added t o m o t i o n pictures was t o diminish the role o f mime, t a c t i l i t y , and kinesthesis. Similarly, w h e n nomadic man turned t o sedentary and specialist

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ways, the senses specialized too. T h e development of w r i t i n g and the visual organization o f life made possible the discovery o f individualism, introspection and so on. A n y invention or technology is an extension or self-amputalion of our physical bodies, and such extension also demands new tatios or new equilibriums among the other organs and extensions o f the b o d y . T h e r e is, f o r example, no w a y o f refusing t < > c o m p l y w i t h the new sense ratios or sense "closure" evoked b y the T V image. B u t the effect o f the e n t r y o f the T V image w i l l vary f r o m culture t o culture i n accordance w i t h the existing sense ratios i n each culture. I n audile-tactile Europe T V has i n tensified the visual sense, spurring them t o w a r d A m e r i c a n styles of packaging and dressing, i n America, the intensely visual culture, T V has opened the doors o f audile-tactile perception t o the n o n visual w o r l d o f spoken languages and f o o d and the plastic arts. As an extension and expediter of the sense life, any m e d i u m at once affects the entire field o f the senses, as the Psalmist explained long ago i n the 115th Psalm: Their idols are silver and gold, The w o r k of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not; Eyes they have, but they see not; They have ears, but they hear not; Noses have they, but they smell not; They have hands, but they handle not; Feet have they, but they walk not; Neither speak they through their throat. They that make them shall be like unto them; Yea, every one that trusteth i n them. T h e concept o f " i d o l " f o r the H e b r e w Psalmist is m u c h like that o f Narcissus f o r the Greek m y t h m a k e r . A n d the Psalmist insists that the beholding o f idols, or the use o f technology, conforms men to them. " T h e y that make t h e m shall be l i k e u n t o them." T h i s is a simple fact o f sense "closure." T h e poet Blake developed the Psalmist's ideas i n t o an entire t h e o r y o f c o m m u nication and social change, I t is i n his l o n g poem o f Jerusalem that he explains w h y men have become w h a t they have beheld.

46/'Understanding

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W h a t t h e y have, says Blake, is " t h e spectre o f the Reasoning Power i n M a n " that has become fragmented and "separated f r o m Imagination and enclosing itself as i n steel." Blake, i n a w o r d , sees man as fragmented b y his technologies. B u t he insists that these technologies are self-amputations o f our o w n organs. W h e n so amputated, each organ becomes a closed system o f great new i n tensity that hurls m a n i n t o " m a r t y r d o m s and w a r s . " Moreover, Blake announces as his theme i n Jerusalem the organs o f perception: I f Perceptive Organs vary, Objects of Perception seem to vary: I f Perceptive Organs close, their Objects seem t o close also. T o behold, use o r perceive any extension o f ourselves i n technological f o r m is necessarily t o embrace i t . T o listen t o radio o r t o read the printed page is t o accept these extensions o f ourselves i n t o our personal system and t o undergo the "closure" or displacement o f perception that f o l l o w s automatically. I t is this continuous embrace o f our o w n technology i n daily use that puts us i n the Narcissus role o f subliminal awareness and numbness i n relation t o these images o f ourselves. B y continuously embracing technologies, w e relate ourselves t o them as servomechanisms. T h a t is w h y w e must, t o use t h e m at all, serve these objects, these extensions o f ourselves, as gods o r m i n o r religions. A n Indian is the servo-mechanism o f his canoe, as the c o w b o y o f his horse or the executive o f his clock. Physiologically, man i n the normal use o f technology ( o r his variously extended b o d y ) is perpetually modified b y i t and i n t u r n finds ever n e w ways o f m o d i f y i n g his technology. M a n becomes, as i t were, the sex organs o f the machine w o r l d , as the bee o f the plant w o r l d , enabling i t t o fecundate and t o evolve ever n e w forms. T h e machine w o r l d reciprocates man's love b y expediting his wishes and desires, namely, i n p r o v i d i n g h i m w i t h wealth. One o f the merits o f m o t i v a t i o n research has been the revelation o f man's sex relation t o the motorcar. Socially, i t is the accumulation o f group pressures and i r r i t a tions that p r o m p t invention and innovation as counter-irritants.

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W a r and the fear o f w a r have always been considered the main incentives t o technological extension o f our bodies. Indeed, Lewis M u m f o r d , i n his The City in History, considers the walled c i t y itself an extension o f o u r skins, as m u c h as housing and clothing. M o r e even than the preparation f o r w a r , the aftermath o f i n vasion is a r i c h technological p e r i o d ; because the subject culture lias t o adjust all its sense ratios t o accommodate the impact o f the invading culture. I t is f r o m such intensive h y b r i d exchange and strife o f ideas and forms that the greatest social energies are released, and f r o m w h i c h arise the greatest technologies. Buckminster Fuller estimates that since 1910 the governments o f the w o r l d have spent 3 y t r i l l i o n dollars o n airplanes. T h a t is 62 times the existing gold supply o f the w o r l d . 2

T h e principle o f numbness comes i n t o play w i t h electric technology, as w i t h any other. W e have t o n u m b our central nervous system w h e n i t is extended and exposed, or w e w i l l die. T hus the age o f anxiety and of electric media is also the age o f the unconscious and o f apathy. B u t i t is s t r i k i n g l y the age o f consciousness o f the unconscious, i n addition. W i t h our central nervous system strategically numbed, the tasks o f conscious awareness and order are transferred t o the physical life of man, so that for the first time he has become aware o f technology as an extension o f his physical b o d y . A p p a r e n t l y this could not have happened before the electric age gave us the means o f instant, total field-awareness. W i t h such awareness, the subliminal life, private and social, has been hoicked u p i n t o f u l l v i e w , w i t h the result that w e have "social consciousness" presented t o us as a cause o f guilt-feelings. Existentialism offers a philosophy of structures, rather than categories, and o f total social involvement i n stead o f the bourgeois spirit o f individual separateness or points o f view. I n the electric age w e wear all mankind as our skin.

5

Hybrid Energy Les Liaisons Dangereuses

" F o r most o f our lifetime c i v i l w a r has been raging i n the w o r l d o f art and entertainment. . . . M o v i n g pictures, gramophone records, radio, t a l k i n g pictures. . . . " T h i s is the v i e w o f Donald M c W h i n n i e , analyst o f the radio medium. M o s t o f this c i v i l w a r affects us i n the depths o f our psychic lives, as w e l l , since the w a r is conducted b y forces that are extensions and amplifications o f our o w n beings. Indeed, the interplay among media is o n l y another name f o r this c i v i l w a r " that rages i n our society and our psyches alike. " T o the b l i n d all things are sudden," i t has been said. T h e crossings or h y b r i d i zations o f the media release great new force and energy as b y fission or fusion. T h e r e need be no blindness i n these matters once w e have been notified that there is a n y t h i n g t o observe. I t has n o w been explained that media, or the extensions of man, are "make happ e n " agents, b u t not "make aware" agents.

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T he h y b r i d i z i n g or compounding o f these agents offers an especially favorable o p p o r t u n i t y to notice their structural c o m ponents and properties. " A s the silent f i l m cried out f o r sound, so does the sound f i l m c r y out f o r c o l o r , " w r o t e Sergei Eisenstein in his Nates of a Film Director. T h i s t y p e o f observation can be extended systematically t o all media: " A s the p r i n t i n g press cried out f o r nationalism, so d i d the radio c r y out f o r tribalism." These media, being extensions o f ourselves, also depend u p o n us f o r their interplay and their evolution. T h e fact that they do interact and spawn new progeny has been a source o f w o n d e r over the ages. I t need baffle us no longer i f w e trouble to scrutinize their action. W e can, i f w e choose, t h i n k things o u t before w e p u t them out. Plato, i n all his s t r i v i n g t o imagine an ideal training school, failed t o notice that Athens was a greater school than any u n i versity even he c o u l d dream u p . I n other w o r d s , the greatest school had been p u t o u t f o r human use before i t has been t h o u g h t out. N o w , this is especially true of our media. T h e y are p u t out l o n g before they are t h o u g h t out. I n fact, their being p u t outside us tends to cancel the possibility o f their being t h o u g h t of at all. E v e r y b o d y notices h o w coal and steel and cars affect the arrangements o f daily existence. I n our time, study has finally turned t o the m e d i u m o f language itself as shaping the arrangements o f daily life, so that society begins t o l o o k like a linguistic echo or repeat o f language norms, a fact that has disturbed the Russian Communist p a r t y v e r y deeply. W e d d e d as they are t o nineteenth-century industrial technology as the basis o f class liberation, nothing c o u l d be more subversive o f the M a r x i a n dialectic than the idea that linguistic media shape social development, as m u c h as do the means of p r o d u c t i o n . I n fact, of all the great h y b r i d unions that breed furious release o f energy and change, there is none t o surpass the meeting of literate and oral cultures. T h e g i v i n g t o man o f an eye f o r an ear b y phonetic literacy is, socially and politically, probably the most radical explosion that can occur i n any social structure. T h i s explosion o f the eye, frequently repeated i n " b a c k w a r d areas,"

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w e call Westernization. W i t h literacy n o w about t o hybridize the cultures o f the Chinese, the Indians, and the Africans, w e are about to experience such a release o f human p o w e r and aggressive violence as makes the previous history of phonetic alphabet technology seem quite tame. T h a t is o n l y the East side story, f o r the electric implosion n o w brings oral and tribal ear-culture t o the literate West. N o t o n l y does the visual, specialist, and fragmented Westerner have n o w t o live i n closest daily association w i t h all the ancient oral cultures o f the earth, b u t his o w n electric technology n o w begins t o translate the visual or eye man back i n t o the t r i b a l and oral pattern w i t h its seamless w e b o f kinship and interdependence. W e k n o w f r o m our o w n past the k i n d of energy that is released, as b y fission, w h e n literacy explodes the tribal or f a m i l y u n i t . W h a t do w e k n o w about the social and psychic energies that develop b y electric fusion or implosion w h e n literate individuals are suddenly gripped b y an electromagnetic field, such as occurs i n the new C o m m o n M a r k e t pressure i n Europe? M a k e no mistake, the fusion of people w h o have k n o w n i n d i v i d ualism and nationalism is not the same process as the fission of "backw a r d " and oral cultures that are just coming t o individualism and nationalism. I t is the difference between the " A " bomb and the " H " bomb. T h e latter is more violent, b y far. Moreover, the products of electric fusion are immensely complex, w h i l e the products o f fission are simple. Literacy creates v e r y m u c h simpler kinds of people than those that develop i n the complex w e b o f o r d i n a r y tribal and oral societies. For the fragmented man creates the homogenized W e s t e r n w o r l d , w h i l e oral societies are made up of people differentiated, n o t b y their specialist skills o r visible marks, b u t b y their unique emotional mixes. T h e oral man's inner w o r l d is a tangle o f complex emotions and feelings that the W e s t e r n practical man has l o n g ago eroded or suppressed w i t h i n himself i n the interest of efficiency and practicality. T h e immediate prospect f o r literate, fragmented W e s t e r n man encountering the electric implosion w i t h i n his o w n culture is his steady and rapid transformation i n t o a complex and depthstructured person emotionally aware o f his total interdependence

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w i t h the rest of human society. Representatives o f the older Western individualism are even n o w assuming the appearance, for good or i l l , of A l Capp's General B u l l Moose or of the John Itirchers, t r i b a l l y dedicated to opposing the tribal. Fragmented, literate, and visual individualism is n o t possible i n an electrically patterned and imploded society. So w h a t is t o be done? D o w e dare to c o n f r o n t such facts at the conscious level, or is i t best t o becloud and repress such matters u n t i l some violence releases us f r o m the entire burden? For the fate o f implosion and interdependence is more terrible f o r Western man than the fate o f explosion and independence f o r tribal man. I t may be merely t emperament i n m y o w n case, b u t I f i n d some easing o f the burden in just understanding and c l a r i f y i n g the issues. O n the other hand, since consciousness and awareness seem t o be a human privilege, may i t not be desirable to extend this c o n d i t i o n to our hidden conflicts, b o t h private and social? T h e present book, i n seeking to understand many media, the conflicts f r o m w h i c h t h e y spring, and the even greater conflicts to w h i c h they give rise, holds out the promise o f reducing these conflicts b y an increase o f human autonomy. L e t us n o w note a f e w of the effects o f media hybrids, or o f the interpénétration of one medium b y another. L i f e at the Pentagon has been greatly complicated b y jet travel, f o r example. E v e r y f e w minutes an assembly gong rings to summon many specialists f r o m their desks t o hear a personal report f r o m an expert f r o m some remote part o f the w o r l d . Meantime, the undone paper w o r k mounts o n each desk. A n d each department daily dispatches personnel b y jet t o remote areas f o r more data and reports. Such is the speed o f this process of the meeting o f the jet plane, the oral report, and the t y p e w r i t e r that those g o i n g f o r t h to the ends of the earth often arrive unable t o spell the name o f the spot to w h i c h t h e y have been sent as experts. Lewis Carroll pointed out that as large-scale maps g o t more and more detailed and extensive, they w o u l d tend to blanket agriculture and rouse the protest o f farmers. So w h y n o t use the actual earth as a map o f itself? W e have reached a similar p o i n t of data gathering w h e n each stick of chewing g u m w e reach f o r

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is acutely noted b y some computer that translates our least gesture i n t o a new p r o b a b i l i t y curve or some parameter o f social science. O u r private and corporate lives have become i n f o r m a t i o n processes just because w e have p u t our central nervous systems outside us i n electric technology. T h a t is the k e y to Professor Boorstin's bewilderment i n The Image, or What Happened to the American Dream. T h e electric light ended the regime of n i g h t and day, o f indoors and out-of-doors. B u t i t is w h e n the l i g h t encounters already existing patterns o f human organization that the h y b r i d energy is released. Cars can travel all night, ball players can play all night, and w i n d o w s can be l e f t out of buildings. I n a w o r d , the message o f the electric l i g h t is total change. I t is pure i n f o r m a t i o n w i t h o u t any content to restrict its transforming and i n f o r m i n g power. I f the student of media w i l l b u t meditate on the power of this m e d i u m o f electric l i g h t t o transform every structure o f time and space and w o r k and society that i t penetrates or contacts, he w i l l have the k e y t o the f o r m of the p o w e r that is i n all media t o reshape any lives that they touch. Except f o r light, all other media come i n pairs, w i t h one acting as the " c o n t e n t " of the other, obscuring the operation o f b o t h . I t is a peculiar bias o f those w h o operate media f o r the owners that they be concerned about the p r o g r a m content o f radio, or press, or f i l m . T h e owners themselves are concerned more about the media as such, and are not inclined t o go beyond " w h a t the public w a n t s " or some vague f o r m u l a . Owners are aware o f the media as power, and they k n o w that this power has little t o do w i t h " c o n t e n t " or the media w i t h i n the media. W h e n the press opened u p the " h u m a n interest" keyboard after the telegraph had restructured the press m e d i u m , the newspaper killed the theater, just as T V h i t the movies and the n i g h t clubs v e r y hard. George Bernard Shaw had the w i t and imaginat i o n to fight back. H e p u t the press i n t o the theater, taking over the controversies and the human interest w o r l d o f the press f o r the stage, as Dickens had done f o r the novel. T h e movie t o o k oyer the novel and the newspaper and the stage, all at once. T h e n

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T V pervaded the movie and gave the theater-in-the-round back i o i lie public. W h a t I am saying is that media as extensions o f our senses institute new ratios, n o t o n l y among our private senses, b u t among ihcmsclves, w h e n they interact among themselves. Radio changed i he f o r m of the news story as m u c h as i t altered the film image i n i lie talkies. T V caused drastic changes i n radio p r o g r a m m i n g , and in the f o r m of the thing or documentary novel. i t is the poets and painters w h o react instantly t o a new medium like radio or T V . Radio and gramophone and tape recorder gave us back the poet's voice as an important dimension of the poetic experience. W o r d s became a k i n d o f painting w i t h light, again. B u t T V , w i t h its deep-partcipation mode, caused y o u n g poets suddenly t o present their poems i n cafés, i n public parks, anywhere. A f t e r T V , t h e y suddenly f e l t the need for personal contact w i t h their public. ( I n print-oriented T o r o n t o , poetry-reading i n the public parks is a public offense. Religion and politics are permitted, b u t not p o e t r y , as m a n y y o u n g poets recently discovered.) John O'Hara, the novelist, w r o t e i n The Neiv York Times Book Review o f N o v e m b e r 27, 1955: You get a great satisfaction f r o m a book. You know your reader is captive inside those covers, but as novelist you have to imagine the satisfaction he's getting. N o w , i n the theaterwell, I used to drop i n during both productions of Pal Joey and watch, not imagine, the people enjoy i t . I ' d willingly start m y next novel—about a small town—right now, but I need the diversion of a play. I n our age artists are able to m i x their media diet as easily as their b o o k diet. A poet like Yeats made the fullest use of oral peasant culture i n creating his literary effects. Q u i t e early, E l i o t made a great impact b y the careful use o f jazz and f i l m f o r m . The Love Song of /. Alfred Prufrock gets m u c h o f its power f r o m an interpénétration o f film f o r m and jazz i d i o m . B u t this m i x reached its greatest p o w e r i n The Waste Land and Sweeney Agonistes. Prufrock uses n o t o n l y film f o r m b u t the film theme of Charlie Chaplin, as d i d James Joyce i n Ulysses. Joyce's B l o o m

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is a deliberate takeover f r o m Chaplin ( " C h o r n e y Choplain," as he called h i m i n Finnegans Wake). A n d Chaplin, just as Chopin had adapted the pianoforte t o the style o f the ballet, h i t u p o n the wondrous media m i x of ballet and f i l m i n developing his Pavlovalike alternation o f ecstasy and waddle. H e adopted the classical steps o f ballet to a movie mime that converged exactly the r i g h t blend o f the l y r i c and the ironic that is f o u n d also i n Prufrock and Ulysses. Artists i n various fields are always the first to discover h o w t o enable one m e d i u m t o use or to release the power o f another. I n a simpler f o r m , i t is the technique employed b y Charles Boyer i n his k i n d o f French-English blend o f urbane, t h r o a t y delirium. T h e printed book had encouraged artists t o reduce all forms o f expression as m u c h as possible t o the single descriptive and narrative plane of the printed w o r d . T h e advent of electric media released art f r o m this straitjacket at once, creating the w o r l d o f Paul Klee, Picasso, Braque, Eisenstein, the M a r x Brothers, and James Joyce. A headline i n The New York Times Book Review (September 16, 1962) trills: There's N o t h i n g L i k e a Best Seller t o Set H o l l y w o o d a-Tingle. O f course, nowadays, movie stars can o n l y be lured f r o m the beaches or science-fiction or some self-improvement course b y the cultural lure of a role i n a famous book. T h a t is the w a y that the interplay o f media n o w affects m a n y i n the movie colony. T h e y have no more understanding of their media problems than does Madison Avenue. B u t f r o m the point o f v i e w of the owners o f the f i l m and related media, the best seller is a f o r m of insurance that some massive new gestalt or pattern has been isolated i n the public psyche. I t is an o i l strike or a g o l d mine that can be depended on t o y i e l d a fair amount of boodle to the careful and canny processer. H o l l y w o o d bankers, that is, are smarter than l i t e r a r y historians, f o r the latter despise popular taste except w h e n i t has been filtered d o w n f r o m lecture course to l i t e r a r y handbook. L i l l i a n Ross i n Picture w r o t e a snide account of the f i l m i n g of The Red Badge of Courage. She got a good deal o f easy kudos

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for a foolish book about a great film b y simply assuming the superiority of the l i t e r a r y medium t o the f i l m medium. H e r b o o k got m u c h attention as a h y b r i d . Agatha Christie w r o t e far above her usual good level i n a group o f twelve short stories about H e r c u l e Poirot, called The Labours of Hercules. B y adjusting the classical themes t o make reasonable modern parallels, she was able t o l i f t the detective f o r m to extraordinary intensity. Such was, also, the method of James Joyce i n Dubliners and Ulysses, w h e n the precise classical parallels created the true h y b r i d energy. Baudelaire, said M r . E l i o t , " t a u g h t us h o w t o raise the imagery of common life to first intensity." I t is done, n o t b y any direct heave-ho o f poetic strength, b u t b y a simple adjustment o f situations f r o m one culture i n h y b r i d f o r m w i t h those o f another. It is precisely i n this w a y that d u r i n g wars and migrations new cultural m i x is the n o r m o f ordinary daily life. Operations Research programs the h y b r i d principle as a technique o f creative discovery. W h e n the movie scenario or picture story was applied to the idea article, the magazine w o r l d had discovered a h y b r i d that ended the supremacy o f the short story. W h e n wheels were p u t in tandem f o r m , the wheel principle combined w i t h the lineal typographic principle t o create aerodynamic balance. T h e wheel crossed w i t h industrial, lineal f o r m released the new f o r m of the airplane. T h e h y b r i d or the meeting o f t w o media is a moment o f t r u t h and revelation f r o m w h i c h new f o r m is b o r n . F o r the parallel between t w o media holds us o n the frontiers between forms that snap us out of the Narcissus-narcosis. T h e moment o f the meeting of media is a moment o f freedom and release f r o m the o r d i n a r y trance and numbness imposed b y them on our senses.

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T h e tendency o f neurotic children to lose neurotic traits w h e n telephoning has been a puzzle t o psychiatrists. Some stutterers l° stutter w h e n t h e y s w i t c h t o a foreign language. T h a t technologies are ways o f translating one k i n d o f knowledge into another mode has been expressed b y L y m a n Bryson i n the phrase "technology is explicitness." Translation is thus a "spelli n g - o u t " o f forms of k n o w i n g . W h a t w e call "mechanization" is a translation o f nature, and o f our o w n natures, i n t o amplified and specialized forms. T h u s the quip i n Finnegans Wake, " W h a t b i r d has done yesterday man m a y do next year," is a s t r i c t l y literal observation o f the courses o f technology. T h e p o w e r o f technology as dependent o n alternately grasping and letting go i n order t o enlarge the scope of action has been observed as the p o w e r o f the higher arboreal apes as compared w i t h those that are o n the g r o u n d . Elias Canetti made the proper association of this p o w e r o f the s e

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higher apes to grasp and let go, w i t h the strategy of the stock market speculators. I t is all capsulated i n the popular variant on Robert B r o w n i n g : " A man's reach must exceed his grasp or what's a metaphor." A l l media are active metaphors i n their power t o i ni asiate experience i n t o new forms. T h e spoken w o r d was the first technology b y w h i c h man was able to let go o f his e n v i r o n ment i n order to grasp i t i n a new w a y . W o r d s are a k i n d o f information retrieval that can range over the total environment and experience at high speed. W o r d s are complex systems o f metaphors and symbols that translate experience into our uttered or outered senses. T h e y are a technology o f explicitness. B y means of translation o f immediate sense experience into vocal symbols the entire w o r l d can be evoked and retrieved at any instant. I n this electric age w e see ourselves being translated more and more into the f o r m o f i n f o r m a t i o n , m o v i n g t o w a r d the technological extension o f consciousness. T h a t is w h a t is meant when w e say that w e daily k n o w more and more about man. W e mean that w e can translate more and more o f ourselves i n t o other forms o f expression that exceed ourselves. M a n is a f o r m of expression w h o is traditionally expected t o repeat himself and t o echo the praise o f his Creator. "Prayer," said George H e r b e r t , "is reversed t h u n d e r . " M a n has the p o w e r t o reverberate the Divine thunder, b y verbal translation. B y p u t t i n g our physical bodies inside o u r extended nervous systems, b y means o f electric media, w e set u p a dynamic b y w h i c h all previous technologies that are mere extensions o f hands and feet and teeth and b o d i l y heat-controls—all such extensions of our bodies, i n c l u d i n g cities—will be translated into i n f o r m a tion systems. Electromagnetic technology requires utter human d o c i l i t y and quiescence o f meditation such as befits an organism that n o w wears its brain outside its skull and its nerves outside its hide. M a n must serve his electric technology w i t h the same servo-mechanistic fidelity w i t h w h i c h he served his coracle, his canoe, his t y p o g r a p h y , and all other extensions o f his physical organs. B u t there is this difference, that previous technologies were partial and fragmentary, and the electric is total and i n clusive. A n external consensus or conscience is n o w as necessary

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as private consciousness. W i t h the n e w media, however, i t is also possible t o store and to translate everything; and, as f o r speed, that is no problem. N o f u r t h e r acceleration is possible this side o f the l i g h t barrier. Just as w h e n i n f o r m a t i o n levels rise i n physics and chemistry, i t is possible t o use a n y t h i n g f o r f u e l or fabric or building material, so w i t h electric technology all solid goods can be summoned to appear as solid commodities b y means of i n f o r m a t i o n circuits set u p i n the organic patterns that w e call " a u t o m a t i o n " and i n f o r m a t i o n retrieval. U n d e r electric technology the entire business o f man becomes learning and k n o w i n g . I n terms o f w h a t w e still consider an " e c o n o m y " (the Greek w o r d f o r a household), this means that all forms o f employment become " p a i d learning," and all forms o f w e a l t h result f r o m the movement o f i n f o r m a t i o n . T h e problem of discovering occupations or employment may prove as difficult as wealth is easy. T h e l o n g revolution b y w h i c h men have sought t o translate nature i n t o art w e have l o n g referred t o as "applied knowledge." " A p p l i e d " means translated or carried across f r o m one k i n d o f material f o r m i n t o another. F o r those w h o care t o consider this amazing process o f applied knowledge i n W e s t e r n civilization, Shakespeare's As You Like It provides a good deal t o t h i n k about. H i s forest o f A r d e n is just such a golden w o r l d o f translated benefits and joblessness as w e are n o w entering via the gate o f electric automation. I t is no more than one w o u l d expect that Shakespeare should have understood the Forest o f A r d e n as an advance model o f the age o f automation w h e n all things are translatable i n t o anyt h i n g else that is desired: A n d this our life, exempt f r o m public haunt, Finds tongues i n trees, books i n the running brooks, Sermons i n stones, and good i n every thing. I would not change i t . AMIENS:

Happy is your Grace, That can translate the stubbornness of fortune Into so quiet and so sweet a style. (As You Like It, I I , i . 15-21)

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Shakespeare speaks o f a w o r l d i n t o w h i c h , b y p r o g r a m m i n g , as i t were, one can p l a y back the materials o f the natural w o r l d i n a variety of levels and intensities o f style. W e are close t o doing just this o n a massive scale at the present time electronically. H e r e is the image of the golden age as one o f complete metamorphoses or translations o f nature i n t o human art, that stands ready o f access t o our electric age. T h e poet Stéphane Mallarmé t h o u g h t " t h e w o r l d exists to end i n a b o o k . " W e are n o w i n a position to go b e y o n d that and t o transfer the entire show t o the m e m o r y o f a computer. For man, as Julian H u x l e y observes, unlike merely biological creatures, possesses an apparatus o f transmission and transformation based o n his power t o store experience. A n d his p o w e r t o store, as i n a language itself, is also a means o f transform a t i o n o f experience: "Those pearls that were his eyes." O u r dilemma m a y become like that o f the listener w h o phoned the radio station: " A r e y o u the station that gives t w i c e as m u c h weather? W e l l , t u r n i t off. I ' m d r o w n i n g . " O r w e m i g h t r e t u r n t o the state o f tribal man, f o r w h o m magic rituals are his means o f "applied k n o w l e d g e . " Instead o f translating nature i n t o art, the native nonliterate attempts t o i n vest nature w i t h spiritual energy. Perhaps there is a k e y t o some o f these problems i n the Freudian idea that w h e n w e fail to translate some natural event or experience i n t o conscious art w e "repress" i t . I t is this mechanism that also serves t o n u m b us i n the presence of those extensions o f ourselves that are the media studied i n this book. F o r just as a metaphor transforms and transmits experience, so do the media. W h e n w e say, "111 take a rain-check o n t h a t , " w e translate a social invitation i n t o a sporting event, stepping u p the conventional regret t o an image o f spontaneous disappointment: " Y o u r invitation is n o t just one of those casual gestures that I must brush off. I t makes me feel all the frustration o f an interr u p t e d ball game that I can't get w i t h i t . " As i n all metaphors, there are complex ratios among f o u r parts: " Y o u r invitation is t o o r d i n a r y invitations as ball games are t o conventional social l i f e . "

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I t is i n this w a y that b y seeing one set o f relations t h r o u g h another set that w e store and a m p l i f y experience i n such forms as money. For money is also a metaphor. A n d all media as extensions of ourselves serve t o provide n e w transforming vision and awareness. " I t is an excellent i n v e n t i o n , " Bacon says, " t h a t Pan or the w o r l d is said t o make choice of Echo o n l y (above all other speeches or voices) f o r his w i f e , f o r that alone is true philosophy w h i c h doth f a i t h f u l l y render the v e r y w o r d s o f the w o r l d . . . " T o d a y M a r k I I stands b y t o render the masterpieces of literature f r o m any language i n t o any other language, giving as follows, the w o r d s of a Russian c r i t i c of T o l s t o y about " W a r and W o r l d (peace. . . . B u t nonetheless culture n o t stands) costs on place. Something translate. Something p r i n t . " (Boorstin, 141) O u r v e r y w o r d "grasp" or "apprehension" points t o the process of getting at one t h i n g t h r o u g h another, o f handling and sensing many facets at a time t h r o u g h more than one sense at a time. I t begins t o be evident that " t o u c h " is n o t skin b u t the interplay o f the senses, and "keeping i n t o u c h " o r " g e t t i n g i n t o u c h " is a matter o f a f r u i t f u l meeting o f the senses, of sight translated i n t o sound and sound i n t o movement, and taste and smell. T h e " c o m m o n sense" was f o r m a n y centuries held t o be the peculiar human p o w e r o f translating one k i n d o f experience of one sense i n t o all the senses, and presenting the result continuously as a unified image t o the m i n d . I n fact, this image o f a unified ratio among the senses was l o n g held t o be the mark of our rationality, and may i n the computer age easily become so again. F o r i t is n o w possible t o program ratios among the senses that approach the condition of consciousness. Y e t such a c o n d i t i o n w o u l d necessarily be an extension o f our o w n consciousness as m u c h as wheel is an extension of feet i n rotation. H a v i n g extended or translated our central nervous system into the electromagnetic technology, i t is b u t a f u r t h e r stage t o transfer o u r consciousness t o the computer w o r l d as w e l l . T h e n , at least, w e shall be able t o p r o g r a m consciousness i n such wise that i t cannot be numbed nor distracted b y the Narcissus illusions o f the entertainment w o r l d that beset

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mankind w h e n he encounters himself extended i n his o w n g i m mickry. I f the w o r k of the c i t y is the remaking or translating o f man i n t o a more suitable f o r m than his nomadic ancestors achieved, then m i g h t not our current translation o f our entire lives i n t o the spiritual f o r m o f i n f o r m a t i o n seem t o make o f the entire globe, and of the human f a m i l y , a single consciousness?

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Challenge and Collapse The Nemesis of Creativity

I t was Bertrand Russell w h o declared that the great discovery o f the t w e n t i e t h cent u r y was the technique o f the suspended judgment. A . N . W h i t e h e a d , o n the other hand, explained h o w the great discovery of the nineteenth c e n t u r y was the discovery o f the technique o f discovery. N a m e l y , the technique o f starting w i t h the t h i n g t o be discovered and w o r k i n g back, step b y step, as o n an assembly line, t o the p o i n t at w h i c h i t is necessary t o start i n order t o reach the desired object. I n the arts this meant starting w i t h the effect and then inventing a poem, painting, or building that w o u l d have just that effect and no other. But the "technique o f the suspended j u d g m e n t " goes further. I t anticipates the effect of, say, an unhappy childhood o n an adult, and offsets the effect before i t happens. I n psychiatry, i t is the technique of total permissiveness extended as an anesthetic f o r the m i n d , w h i l e various adhe-

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sions and moral effects o f false judgments are systematically eliminated. T h i s is a v e r y different t h i n g f r o m the n u m b i n g or narcotic effect o f new technology that lulls attention w h i l e the n e w f o r m slams the gates o f judgment and perception. For massive social surgery is needed t o insert n e w technology i n t o the group m i n d , and this is achieved b y the b u i l t - i n n u m b i n g apparatus discussed earlier. N o w the "technique o f the suspended j u d g m e n t " presents the possibility o f rejecting the narcotic and o f postponing indefinitely the operation o f inserting the new technology i n the social psyche. A new stasis is i n prospect. W e r n e r Heisenberg, i n The Physicist's Conception of Nature, is an example of the n e w quantum physicist whose over-all awareness o f forms suggests t o h i m that w e w o u l d do w e l l t o stand aside f r o m most of them. H e points out that technical change alters n o t o n l y habits o f life, b u t patterns o f t h o u g h t and valuation, c i t i n g w i t h approval the outlook o f the Chinese sage: As Tzu-Gung was traveling through the regions north of the river Han, he saw an old man working i n his vegetable garden. He had dug an irrigation ditch. The man would descend into a well, fetch up a vessel of water i n his arms and pour i t out into the ditch. W h i l e his efforts were tremendous the results appeared to be very meager. Tzu-Gung said, "There is a way whereby you can irrigate a hundred ditches i n one day, and whereby you can do much w i t h little effort. W o u l d you not like to hear of it?" Then the gardener stood up, looked at him and said, " A n d what would that be?" Tsu-Gung replied, " Y o u take a wooden lever, weighted at the back and light i n front. I n this way you can bring up water so quickly that i t just gushes out. This is called a drawwell." Then anger rose up i n the old man's face, and he said, " I have heard m y teacher say that whoever uses machines does all his w o r k like a machine. H e who does his w o r k like a machine grows a heart like a machine, and he who carries the heart of a machine i n his breast loses his simplicity. H e who has lost his simplicity becomes unsure i n the strivings of his soul. Uncertainty i n the strivings of the soul is something which does not agree w i t h honest sense. I t is not that I do not know of such things; I am ashamed to use them."

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Perhaps the most interesting p o i n t about this anecdote is that i t appeals t o a m o d e r n physicist. I t w o u l d n o t have appealed t o N e w t o n or to A d a m Smith, f o r t h e y were great experts and advocates o f the fragmentary and the specialist approaches. I t is b y means quite i n accord w i t h the o u t l o o k of the Chinese sage that Hans Selye w o r k s at his "stress" idea o f illness. I n the 1920s he had been baffled at w h y physicians always seemed t o concentrate o n the recognition o f individual diseases and specific remedies f o r such isolated causes, w h i l e never p a y i n g any attention to the "syndrome o f just being sick." Those w h o are concerned w i t h the p r o g r a m " c o n t e n t " o f media and n o t w i t h the m e d i u m proper, appear t o be i n the position o f physicians w h o ignore the "syndrome o f just being sick." Hans Selye, i n t a c k l i n g a total, inclusive approach t o the field o f sickness, began w h a t A d o l p h e Jonas has continued i n Irritation and Counter-Irritation; namely, a quest f o r the response t o i n j u r y as such, or t o novel impact of any k i n d . T o d a y w e have anesthetics that enable us t o p e r f o r m the most f r i g h t f u l physical operations o n one another. T h e n e w media and technologies b y w h i c h w e a m p l i f y and extend ourselves constitute huge collective surgery carried o u t on the social b o d y w i t h complete disregard f o r antiseptics. I f the operations are needed, the inevitability of i n f e c t i n g the w h o l e system d u r i n g the operation has to be considered. F o r i n operating o n society w i t h a new technology, i t is n o t the incised area that is most affected. T h e area o f impact and incision is n u m b . I t is the entire system that is changed. T h e effect o f radio is visual, the effect o f the photo is a u d i t o r y . Each new impact shifts the ratios among all the senses. W h a t w e seek today is either a means of c o n t r o l l i n g these shifts i n the sense-ratios of the psychic and social outlook, or a means of avoiding them altogether. T o have a disease w i t h o u t its symptoms is t o be immune. N o society has ever k n o w n enough about its actions t o have developed i m m u n i t y t o its new extensions or technologies. T o d a y w e have begun t o sense that art m a y be able t o provide such i m m u n i t y . I n the history of human culture there is no example o f a c o n scious adjustment o f the various factors o f personal and social life to new extensions except i n the p u n y and peripheral efforts of

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artists. T h e artist picks u p the message o f cultural and technological challenge decades before its transforming impact occurs. H e , then, builds models o r Noah's arks f o r facing the change that is at hand. " T h e w a r of 1870 need never have been f o u g h t had people read m y Sentimental Education" said Gustave Flaubert. I t is this aspect o f neiv art that Kenneth Galbraith recommends t o the careful study o f businessmen w h o w a n t t o stay i n business. F o r i n the electric age there is no longer any sense i n t a l k i n g about the artist's being ahead of his time. O u r technology is, also, ahead o f its time, i f w e reckon b y the ability t o recognize i t f o r w h a t i t is. T o prevent undue wreckage i n society, the artist tends n o w t o move f r o m the i v o r y t o w e r t o the c o n t r o l t o w e r o f society. Just as higher education is no longer a f r i l l or l u x u r y b u t a stark need of p r o d u c t i o n and operational design i n the electric age, so the artist is indispensable i n the shaping and analysis and understanding o f the l i f e o f forms, and structures created b y electric technology. T h e percussed victims o f the new technology have invariably muttered clichés about the impracticality o f artists and their f a n c i f u l preferences. B u t i n the past c e n t u r y i t has come t o be generally acknowledged that, i n the w o r d s o f W y n d h a m Lewis, " T h e artist is always engaged i n w r i t i n g a detailed history o f the f u t u r e because he is the o n l y person aware o f the nature of the present." K n o w l e d g e o f this simple fact is n o w needed f o r human survival. T h e ability o f the artist t o sidestep the b u l l y b l o w of new technology of any age, and t o p a r r y such violence w i t h f u l l awareness, is age-old. E q u a l l y age-old is the inability o f the percussed victims, w h o cannot sidestep the n e w violence, t o recognize their need o f the artist. T o r e w a r d and t o make celebrities o f artists can, also, be a w a y o f i g n o r i n g their prophetic w o r k , and preventing its t i m e l y use f o r survival. T h e artist is the man i n any field, scientific or humanistic, w h o grasps the implications o f his actions and o f n e w knowledge i n his o w n time. H e is the man o f integral awareness. T h e artist can correct the sense ratios before the b l o w o f n e w technology has numbed conscious procedures. H e can correct t h e m before numbness and subliminal g r o p i n g and reaction be-

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gin. I f this is true, h o w is i t possible t o present the matter to those w h o are i n a position t o do something about it? I f there were even a remote likelihood o f this analysis being true, i t w o u l d warrant a global armistice and period o f stock-taking. I f i t is true that the artist possesses the means o f anticipating and avoiding the consequences o f technological trauma, then w h a t are w e t o t h i n k o f the w o r l d and bureaucracy o f " a r t appreciation"? W o u l d i t n o t seem suddenly t o be a conspiracy t o make the artist a f r i l l , a f r i b b l e , or a M i l l t o w n ? I f men were able t o be convinced that art is precise advance knowledge o f h o w t o cope w i t h the psychic and social consequences o f the next technology, w o u l d t h e y all become artists? O r w o u l d they begin a careful translation o f n e w art forms i n t o social navigation charts? I am curious t o k n o w w h a t w o u l d happen i f art were suddenly seen f o r w h a t i t is, namely, exact i n f o r m a t i o n o f h o w t o rearrange one's psyche i n order t o anticipate the next b l o w f r o m our o w n extended faculties. W o u l d w e , then, cease t o l o o k at w o r k s o f art as an explorer m i g h t regard the g o l d and gems used as the ornaments o f simple nonliterates? A t any rate, i n experimental art, men are given the exact specifications o f c o m i n g violence t o their o w n psyches f r o m their o w n counter-irritants or technology. For those parts o f ourselves that w e thrust o u t i n the f o r m of n e w invention are attempts t o counter or neutralize collective pressures and irritations. B u t the counter-irritant usually proves a greater plague than the initial i r r i t a n t , like a d r u g habit. A n d i t is here that the artist can show us h o w t o " r i d e w i t h the p u n c h , " instead o f " t a k i n g i t o n the c h i n . " I t can o n l y be repeated that human h i s t o r y is a record o f " t a k i n g i t on the c h i n . " Emile D u r k h e i m l o n g ago expressed the idea that the specialized task always escaped the action o f the social conscience. I n this regard, i t w o u l d appear that the artist is the social conscience and is treated accordingly! " W e have no a r t , " say the Balinese; " w e do everything as w e l l as possible." T h e m o d e r n metropolis is n o w sprawling helplessly after the impact of the motorcar. As a response t o the challenge of railway speeds the suburb and the garden c i t y arrived too late,

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or just i n time t o become a motorcar disaster. F o r an arrangement of functions adjusted to one set of intensities becomes unbearable at another intensity. A n d a technological extension o f our bodies designed to alleviate physical stress can b r i n g o n psychic stress that may be m u c h worse. W e s t e r n specialist technology transferred t o the A r a b w o r l d i n late Roman times released a furious discharge of tribal energy. T h e somewhat devious means o f diagnosis that have to be used t o p i n d o w n the actual f o r m and impact o f a new m e d i u m are n o t unlike those indicated i n detective fiction b y Peter Cheyney. I n You Can't Keep the Change (Collins, L o n d o n , 1956) he w r o t e : A case to Callaghan was merely a collection of people, some of whom,—all of whom—were giving incorrect information, or telling lies, because circumstances either forced them or led them into the process. But the fact that they had to tell lies; had to give false i m pressions, necessitated a reorientation of their o w n viewpoints and their own lives. Sooner or later they became exhausted or careless. Then, and not until then, was an investigator able to put his finger on the one fact that would lead him to a possible logical solution. I t is interesting t o note that success i n keeping u p a respectable f r o n t o f customary k i n d can o n l y be done b y a frantic scramble back o f the façade. A f t e r the crime, after the b l o w has fallen, the façade o f custom can o n l y be held u p b y s w i f t rearrangement of the props. So i t is i n our social lives w h e n a new technology strikes, or i n our private life w h e n some intense and, therefore, indigestible experience occurs, and the censor acts at once t o n u m b us f r o m the b l o w and t o ready the faculties to assimilate the intruder. Peter Cheyney's observations o f a mode of detective fiction is another instance of a popular f o r m of entertainment f u n c t i o n i n g as m i m i c model o f the real t h i n g . Perhaps the most obvious "closure" or psychic consequence of any new technology is just the demand f o r i t . N o b o d y wants a motorcar t i l l there are motorcars, and n o b o d y is interested i n T V u n t i l there are T V programs. T h i s p o w e r of technology t o

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create its o w n w o r l d o f demand is n o t independent o f technologybeing first an extension of our o w n bodies and senses. W h e n w e are deprived o f our sense of sight, the other senses take up the role of sight i n some degree. B u t the need t o use the senses that are available is as insistent as breathing—a fact that makes sense o f the urge to keep radio and T V going more or less c o n t i n uously. T h e urge t o continuous use is quite independent of the " c o n t e n t " of public programs or o f the private sense life, being testimony t o the fact that technology is part o f our bodies. Electric technology is d i r e c t l y related t o our central nervous systems, so i t is ridiculous to talk o f " w h a t the public wants" played over its o w n nerves. T h i s question w o u l d be like asking people w h a t sort o f sights and sounds they w o u l d prefer around them i n an urban metropolis! Once w e have surrendered our senses and nervous systems t o the private manipulation of those w h o w o u l d t r y to benefit f r o m t a k i n g a lease o n our eyes and ears and nerves, w e don't really have any rights left. Leasing our eyes and ears and nerves to commercial interests is like handing over the c o m m o n speech to a private corporation, or like g i v i n g the earth's atmosphere t o a company as a m o n o p o l y . Something like this has already happened w i t h outer space, f o r the same reasons that w e have leased our central nervous systems t o various corporations. As l o n g as w e adopt the Narcissus attitude o f regarding the extensions o f our o w n bodies as really out there and really independent o f us, w e w i l l meet all technological challenges w i t h the same sort o f banana-skin pirouette and collapse. Archimedes once said, " G i v e me a place t o stand and I w i l l move the w o r l d . " T o d a y he w o u l d have pointed t o o u r electric media and said, " I w i l l stand o n y o u r eyes, y o u r ears, y o u r nerves, and y o u r brain, and the w o r l d w i l l move i n any tempo or pattern I choose." W e have leased these "places t o stand" t o private corporations. A r n o l d T o y n b e e has devoted m u c h o f his A Study of History to analyzing the kinds of challenge faced b y a variety o f cultures d u r i n g many centuries. H i g h l y relevant t o W e s t e r n man is T o y n bee's explanation of h o w the lame and the crippled respond to their handicaps i n a society o f active warriors. T h e y become

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specialists like V u l c a n , the smith and armorer. A n d h o w do w h o l e communities act w h e n conquered and enslaved? T h e same strategy serves them as i t does the lame individual i n a society of warriors. T h e y specialize and become indispensable t o their masters. I t is p r o b a b l y the l o n g human history o f enslavement, and the collapse into specialism as a counter-irritant, that have p u t the stigma o f servitude and pusillanimity o n the figure of the specialist, even i n modern times. T h e capitulation o f W e s t e r n man t o his technology, w i t h its crescendo o f specialized demands, has always appeared to many observers of our w o r l d as a k i n d o f enslavement. B u t the resulting fragmentation has been v o l u n t a r y and enthusiastic, unlike the conscious strategy o f specialism o n the part o f the captives o f m i l i t a r y conquest. I t is plain that fragmentation or specialism as a technique o f achieving security under t y r a n n y and oppression of any k i n d has an attendant danger. Perfect adaptation t o any environment is achieved b y a total channeling o f energies and vital force that amounts t o a k i n d o f static terminus f o r a creature. Even slight changes i n the environment o f the v e r y w e l l adjusted find them w i t h o u t any resource t o meet new challenge. Such is the plight o f the representatives o f "conventional w i s d o m " i n any society. T h e i r entire stake o f security and status is i n a single f o r m o f acquired knowledge, so that innovation is f o r them n o t n o v e l t y b u t annihilation. A related f o r m o f challenge that has always faced cultures is the simple fact o f a f r o n t i e r or a w a l l , o n the other side o f w h i c h exists another k i n d o f society. Mere existence side b y side o f any t w o forms of organization generates a great deal o f tension. Such, indeed, has been the principle o f symbolist artistic structures i n the past century. T o y n b e e observes that the challenge o f a civilization set side b y side w i t h a tribal society has over and over demonstrated that the simpler society finds its integral economy and institutions "disintegrated b y a rain o f psychic energy generated b y the cvilization" o f the more complex culture. W h e n t w o societies exist side b y side, the psychic challenge o f the more complex one acts as an explosive release o f energy i n the simpler one. F o r prolific evidence o f this k i n d o f p r o b l e m i t is n o t neces-

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sary to look beyond the life o f the teenager lived daily i n the midst o f a complex urban center. As the barbarian was driven t o furious restlessness b y the civilized contact, collapsing into mass migration, so the teenager, compelled t o share the life o f a c i t y that cannot accept h i m as an adult, collapses i n t o "rebellion w i t h o u t a cause." Earlier the adolescent had been provided w i t h a r a i n check. H e was prepared t o w a i t i t out. B u t since T V , the drive t o participat i o n has ended adolescence, and every A m e r i c a n home has its Berlin w a l l . T o y n b e e is v e r y generous i n p r o v i d i n g examples o f w i d e l y varied challenge and collapse, and is especially apt i n p o i n t i n g t o the frequent and f u t i l e resort t o f u t u r i s m and archaism as strategies of encountering radical change. B u t t o p o i n t back t o the day of the horse or to look f o r w a r d t o the c o m i n g o f antigravitational vehicles is not an adequate response t o the challenge o f the m o t o r car. Y e t these t w o u n i f o r m ways o f backward and f o r w a r d l o o k ing are habitual ways of avoiding the discontinuities o f present experience w i t h their demand f o r sensitive inspection and appraisal. O n l y the dedicated artist seems t o have the p o w e r f o r encountering the present actuality. T o y n b e e urges again and again the cultural strategy of the imitation o f the example o f great men. T h i s , of course, is t o locate cultural safety i n the power o f the will, rather than i n the power o f adequate perception o f situations. A n y b o d y could quip that this is the British trust i n character as opposed t o intellect. I n v i e w o f the endless p o w e r of men to hypnotize themselves i n t o unawareness i n the presence o f challenge, i t m a y be argued that w i l l power is as useful as intelligence f o r survival. T o d a y w e need also the w i l l t o be exceedingly i n f o r m e d and aware. A r n o l d T o y n b e e gives an example o f Renaissance technology being effectively encountered and creatively controlled w h e n he shows h o w the revival of the decentralized medieval parliament saved English society f r o m the m o n o p o l y o f centralism that seized the continent. Lewis M u m f o r d i n The City in History tells the strange tale of h o w the N e w England t o w n was able t o carry out the pattern of the medieval ideal c i t y because i t was able t o dispense w i t h walls and to m i x t o w n and c o u n t r y . W h e n the technol-

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o g y o f a time is p o w e r f u l l y thrusting i n one direction, w i s d o m may w e l l call f o r a countervailing thrust. T h e implosion of electric energy i n our century cannot be met b y explosion or expansion, b u t i t can be met b y decentralism and the flexibility o f multiple small centers. For example, the rush of students into our universities is n o t explosion b u t implosion. A n d the needful strategy t o encounter this force is n o t t o enlarge the university, b u t t o create numerous groups o f autonomous colleges i n place o f our centralized university plant that g r e w up o n the lines o f European g o v ernment and nineteenth-century industry. I n the same w a y the excessive tactile effects o f the T V image cannot be met b y mere program changes. Imaginative strategy based o n adequate diagnosis w o u l d prescribe a corresponding depth or structural approach t o the existing literary and visual w o r l d . I f w e persist i n a conventional approach t o these developments our traditional culture w i l l be swept aside as scholasticism was i n the sixteenth c e n t u r y . H a d the Schoolmen w i t h their c o m plex oral culture understood the Gutenberg technology, t h e y could have created a n e w synthesis o f w r i t t e n and oral education, instead of b o w i n g o u t o f the picture and a l l o w i n g the merely visual page to take over the educational enterprise. T h e oral Schoolmen d i d n o t meet the n e w visual challenge of p r i n t , and the resulting expansion or explosion o f Gutenberg technology was i n many respects an impoverishment of the culture, as historians like M u m f o r d are n o w beginning to explain. A r n o l d T o y n b e e , i n A Study of History, i n considering "the nature o f g r o w t h s o f civilizations," n o t o n l y abandons the concept o f enlargement as a c r i t e r i o n o f real g r o w t h o f society, b u t states: " M o r e often geographical expansion is a concomitant o f real decline and coincides w i t h a 'time o f troubles' or a universal s t a t e b o t h o f them stages o f decline and disintegration." T o y n b e e expounds the principle that times of trouble or rapid change produce militarism, and i t is militarism that produces empire and expansion. T h e o l d Greek m y t h w h i c h taught that the alphabet produced militarism ( " K i n g Cadmus sowed the dragon's teeth, and they sprang u p armed m e n " ) really goes m u c h deeper than Toynbee's story. I n fact, " m i l i t a r i s m " is just

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vague description, not analysis of causality at all. Militarism is a k i n d of visual organization of social energies that is b o t h specialist and explosive, so that i t is merely repetitive to say, as Toynbee does, that i t b o t h creates large empires and causes social breakd o w n . B u t militarism is a f o r m o f industrialism or the concentration of large amounts of homogenized energies into a f e w kinds of p r o d u c t i o n . T h e Roman soldier was a man w i t h a spade. H e was an expert w o r k m a n and builder w h o processed and packaged the resources o f many societies and sent them home. Before machinery, the o n l y massive w o r k forces available f o r processing material were soldiers or slaves. A s the Greek m y t h o f Cadmus points out, the phonetic alphabet was the greatest processer of men f o r homogenized m i l i t a r y life that was k n o w n to antiquity. T h e age of Greek society that Herodotus acknowledges t o have been "overwhelmed b y more troubles than i n the t w e n t y preceding generations" was the time that t o our literary retrospect appears as one of the greatest of human centuries. I t was Macaulay w h o remarked that i t was n o t pleasant to live i n times about w h i c h i t was exciting to read. T h e succeeding age of Alexander saw H e l lenism expand i n t o Asia and prepare the course of the later Roman expansion. These, however, were the v e r y centuries i n w h i c h Greek civilization obviously fell apart. Toynbee points to the strange falsification o f history b y archeology, insofar as the survival o f many material objects of the past does n o t indicate the quality o f ordinary life and experience at any particular time. Continuous technical improvement i n the means o f warfare occurs over the entire period of Hellenic and Roman decline. T o y n b e e checks o u t his hypothesis b y testing i t w i t h the developments i n Greek agriculture. W h e n the enterprise o f Solon weaned the Greeks f r o m mixed f a r m i n g t o a program o f specialized products f o r export, there were happy consequences and a glorious manifestation o f energy i n Greek life. W h e n the next phase of the same specialist stress involved m u c h reliance on slave labor, there was spectacular increase o f product i o n . But the armies of technologically specialized slaves w o r k i n g the land blighted the social existence of the independent yeomen

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and small farmers, and led to the strange w o r l d o f the Roman towns and cities c r o w d e d w i t h rootless parasites. T o a m u c h greater degree than Roman slavery, the specialism o f mechanized i n d u s t r y and market organization has faced W e s t e r n man w i t h the challenge of manufacture b y mono-fracture, o r the tackling o f all things and operations one-bit-at-a-time. T h i s is the challenge that has permeated all aspects o f our lives and enabled us t o expand so t r i u m p h a n t l y i n all directions and i n all spheres.

Part II

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The Spoken Word Flower of Evil?

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A f e w seconds f r o m a popular disk-jockey show were t y p e d o u t as f o l l o w s : That's Patty Baby and that's the girl w i t h the dancing feet and that's Freddy Cannon there on the David Mickie Show i n the night time ooohbah scubadoo how are you booboo. Next we'll be Swinging on a Star and sssshhhwwoooo and sliding on a moonbeam. Waaaaaaa how about that . . . one of the goodest guys w i t h you . . . this is lovable kissable D . M . i n the p.m. at 22 minutes past nine o'clock there, aahhrightie, we're gonna have a Hitline, all you have to do is call W A l n u t 5-1151, W A l n u t 5-1151, tell them what number i t is on the Hitline. Dave M i c k i e alternately soars, groans, swings, sings, solos, intones, and scampers, always reacting t o his o w n actions. H e moves entirely i n the spoken rather than the w r i t t e n area o f experience. I t is i n this w a y that audience participation is created. T h e spoken w o r d involves all o f the sen-

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ses dramatically, t h o u g h h i g h l y literate people tend t o speak as connectedly and casually as possible. T h e sensuous involvement natural to cultures i n w h i c h literacy is n o t the r u l i n g f o r m of experience is sometimes indicated i n travel guides, as i n this item f r o m a guide to Greece: You w i l l notice that many Greek men seem to spend a lot of time counting the beads of what appear to be amber rosaries. But these have no religious significance. They are komboloia or " w o r r y beads," a legacy f r o m the Turks, and Greeks click them on land, on the sea, i n the air to ward off that insupportable silence which threatens to reign whenever conversation lags. Shepherds do i t , cops do i t , stevedores and merchants in their shops do i t . A n d i f you wonder w h y so few Greek women wear beads, you'll know it's because their husbands have pre-empted them for the simple pleasure of clicking. More aesthetic than thumb-twiddling, less expensive than smoking, this Queeg-like obsession indicates a tactile sensuousness characteristic of a race which has produced the western world's greatest sculpture . . . W h e r e the heavy visual stress of literacy is lacking i n a culture, there occurs another f o r m o f sensuous involvement and cultural appreciation that our Greek guide explains whimsically: . . . do not be surprised at the frequency w i t h which you are patted, petted and prodded in Greece. You may end up feeling like the family dog . . . in an affectionate family. This propensity to pat seems to us a tactile extension of the avid Greek curiosity noted before. It's as though your hosts are trying to find out what you are made of. T h e w i d e l y separate characters of the spoken and w r i t t e n w o r d s are easy t o study today w h e n there is ever closer t o u c h w i t h nonliterate societies. One native, the o n l y literate member o f his group, t o l d o f acting as reader f o r the others w h e n they received letters. H e said he felt impelled to p u t his fingers to his ears w h i l e reading aloud, so as n o t t o violate the p r i v a c y o f their letters. T h i s is interesting testimony t o the values of privacy fostered b y the visual stress of phonetic w r i t i n g . Such separation o f the senses, and o f the individual f r o m the group, can scarcely occur w i t h o u t the influence o f phonetic w r i t i n g . T h e spoken

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w o r d does n o t afford the extension and amplification o f the visual p o w e r needed f o r habits o f individualism and privacy. I t helps t o appreciate the nature o f the spoken w o r d t o contrast i t w i t h the w r i t t e n f o r m . A l t h o u g h phonetic w r i t i n g separates and extends the visual p o w e r o f words, i t is comparat i v e l y crude and slow. T h e r e are n o t m a n y ways o f w r i t i n g " t o n i g h t , " b u t Stanislavsky used t o ask his y o u n g actors t o p r o nounce and stress i t f i f t y different ways w h i l e the audience w r o t e d o w n the different shades o f feeling and meaning expressed. M a n y a page o f prose and m a n y a narrative has been devoted t o expressi n g w h a t was, i n effect, a sob, a moan, a laugh, or a piercing scream. T h e w r i t t e n w o r d spells o u t i n sequence w h a t is quick and i m p l i c i t i n the spoken w o r d . A g a i n , i n speech w e tend t o react t o each situation that occurs, reacting i n tone and gesture even t o our o w n act of speaki n g . B u t w r i t i n g tends t o be a k i n d o f separate or specialist action i n w h i c h there is little o p p o r t u n i t y or call f o r reaction. T h e literate man or society develops the tremendous p o w e r o f acting i n any matter w i t h considerable detachment f r o m the feelings or emotional involvement that a nonliterate man or society w o u l d experience. H e n r i Bergson, the French philosopher, lived and w r o t e i n a t r a d i t i o n o f t h o u g h t i n w h i c h i t was and is considered that language is a human technology that has impaired and diminished the values o f the collective unconscious. I t is the extension of man i n speech that enables the intellect t o detach itself f r o m the vastly w i d e r reality. W i t h o u t language, Bergson suggests, human i n telligence w o u l d have remained totally involved i n the objects o f its attention. Language does f o r intelligence w h a t the wheel does f o r the feet and the b o d y . I t enables t h e m t o move f r o m t h i n g t o t h i n g w i t h greater ease and speed and ever less involvement. Language extends and amplifies man b u t i t also divides his faculties. H i s collective consciousness or i n t u i t i v e awareness is d i m i n ished b y this technical extension of consciousness that is speech. Bergson argues i n Creative Evolution that even consciousness is an extension o f man that dims the bliss o f u n i o n i n the collective unconscious. Speech acts t o separate man f r o m man,

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and m a n k i n d f r o m the cosmic unconscious. As an extension or u t t e r i n g ( o u t e r i n g ) o f all our senses at once, language has always been held t o be man's richest art f o r m , that w h i c h distinguishes h i m f r o m the animal creation. I f the human ear can be compared t o a radio receiver that is able to decode electromagnetic waves and recode them as sound, the human voice may be compared to the radio transmitter i n being able to translate sound i n t o electromagnetic waves. T h e power of the voice to shape air and space into verbal patterns may w e l l have been preceded b y a less specialized expression of cries, grunts, gestures, and commands, o f song and dance. T h e patterns of the senses that are extended i n the various languages o f men are as varied as styles o f dress and art. Each mother tongue teaches its users a w a y o f seeing and feeling the w o r l d , and of acting i n the w o r l d , that is quite unique. O u r new electric technology that extends our senses and nerves i n a global embrace has large implications f o r the f u t u r e of language. Electric technology does n o t need w o r d s any more than the digital computer needs numbers. E l e c t r i c i t y points the w a y to an extension of the process o f consciousness itself, on a w o r l d scale, and w i t h o u t any verbalization whatever. Such a state o f collective awareness may have been the preverbal condition o f men. Language as the technology o f human extension, whose powers o f division and separation w e k n o w so w e l l , m a y have been the " T o w e r of Babel" b y w h i c h men sought t o scale the highest heavens. T o d a y computers h o l d o u t the promise o f a means of instant translation of any code or language i n t o any other code or language. T h e computer, i n short, promises b y technology a Pentecostal c o n d i t i o n of universal understanding and u n i t y . T h e next logical step w o u l d seem to be, n o t t o translate, b u t t o by-pass languages i n favor o f a general cosmic consciousness w h i c h m i g h t be v e r y like the collective unconscious dreamt of b y Bergson. T h e c o n d i t i o n of "weightlessness," that biologists say promises a physical i m m o r t a l i t y , m a y be paralleled b y the cond i t i o n of speechlessness that c o u l d confer a perpetuity o f collective harmony and peace.

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Prince M o d u p e w r o t e o f his encounter w i t h the w r i t t e n w o r d i n his W e s t A f r i c a n d a y s

. The one crowded space i n Father Perry's house was his bookshelves. I gradually came to understand that the marks on the pages were trapped words. Anyone could learn to decipher the symbols and turn the trapped words loose again into speech. The ink of the print trapped the thoughts; they could no more get away than a doomboo could get out of a pit. W h e n the f u l l realization of what this meant flooded over me, I experienced the same thrill and amazement as when I had m y first glimpse of the bright lights of Konakry. I shivered w i t h the intensity of m y desire to learn to do this wondrous thing myself.

I n striking contrast to the native's eagerness, there are the current anxieties o f civilized man concerning the w r i t t e n w o r d . T o some Westerners the w r i t t e n or p r i n t e d w o r d has become a v e r y t o u c h y

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subject. I t is t r u e that there is more material w r i t t e n and printed and read today than ever before, b u t there is also a n e w electric technology that threatens this ancient technology of literacy b u i l t on the phonetic alphabet. Because o f its action i n extending our central nervous system, electric technology seems t o favor the inclusive and participational spoken w o r d over the specialist w r i t t e n w o r d . O u r Western values, b u i l t o n the w r i t t e n w o r d , have already been considerably affected b y the electric media of telephone, radio, and T V . Perhaps that is the reason w h y many h i g h l y literate people i n our time find i t difficult t o examine this question w i t h o u t getting into a m o r a l panic. T h e r e is the f u r t h e r circumstance that, d u r i n g his more than t w o thousand years of literacy, W e s t e r n man has done little to study or t o understand the effects o f the phonetic alphabet i n creating many o f his basic patterns of culture. T o begin n o w t o examine the question may, therefore, seem too late. Suppose that, instead o f displaying the Stars and Stripes, w e were t o w r i t e the w o r d s " A m e r i c a n flag" across a piece o f c l o t h and to display that. W h i l e the symbols w o u l d convey the same meaning, the effect w o u l d be quite different. T o translate the r i c h visual mosaic o f the Stars and Stripes into w r i t t e n f o r m w o u l d be t o deprive i t o f most o f its qualities o f corporate image and o f experience, y e t the abstract literal b o n d w o u l d remain m u c h the same. Perhaps this illustration w i l l serve t o suggest the change the tribal man experiences w h e n he becomes literate. N e a r l y all the emotional and corporate f a m i l y feeling is eliminated f r o m his relationship w i t h his social g r o u p . H e is emotionally free t o separate f r o m the tribe and t o become a civilized individual, a man of visual organization w h o has u n i f o r m attitudes, habits, and rights w i t h all other civilized individuals. T h e Greek m y t h about the alphabet was that Cadmus, reputedly the k i n g w h o introduced the phonetic letters i n t o Greece, sowed the dragon's teeth, and t h e y sprang u p armed men. L i k e any other m y t h , this one capsulates a prolonged process i n t o a flashing insight. T h e alphabet meant p o w e r and a u t h o r i t y and c o n t r o l o f m i l i t a r y structures at a distance. W h e n combined w i t h papyrus, the alphabet spelled the end o f the stationary temple bureauc-

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racies and the priestly monopolies of knowledge and p o w e r . U n l i k e pre-alphabetic w r i t i n g , w h i c h w i t h its innumerable signs was difficult t o master, the alphabet c o u l d be learned i n a f e w hours. T h e acquisition o f so extensive a knowledge and so complex a skill as pre-alphabetic w r i t i n g represented, w h e n applied to such u n w i e l d y materials as b r i c k and stone, insured f o r the scribal caste a m o n o p o l y of priestly power. T h e easier alphabet and the l i g h t , cheap, transportable papyrus together effected the transfer o f p o w e r f r o m the priestly t o the m i l i t a r y class. A l l this is implied i n the m y t h about Cadmus and the dragon's teeth, including the fall o f the c i t y states, the rise o f empires and m i l i t a r y bureaucracies. I n terms o f the extensions o f man, the theme of the dragon's teeth i n the Cadmus m y t h is o f the utmost importance. Elias Canetti i n Crowds and Power reminds us that the teeth are an obvious agent of p o w e r i n man, and especially i n many animals. Languages are filled w i t h testimony t o the grasping, devouring p o w e r and precision o f teeth. T h a t the p o w e r o f letters as agents o f aggressive order and precision should be expressed as extensions o f the dragon's teeth is natural and f i t t i n g . T e e t h are emphatically visual i n their lineal order. Letters are n o t o n l y like teeth visually, b u t their power t o p u t teeth i n t o the business o f empire-building is manifest i n our W e s t e r n history. T h e phonetic alphabet is a unique technology. T h e r e have been m a n y kinds o f w r i t i n g , pictographic and syllabic, b u t there is o n l y one phonetic alphabet i n w h i c h semantically meaningless letters are used to correspond to semantically meaningless sounds. T h i s stark divison and parallelism between a visual and an auditory w o r l d was b o t h crude and ruthless, c u l t u r a l l y speaking. T h e phonetically w r i t t e n w o r d sacrifices w o r l d s o f meaning and perception that were secured b y forms like the hieroglyph and the Chinese ideogram. These c u l t u r a l l y richer forms o f w r i t i n g , h o w ever, offered men no means of sudden transfer f r o m the magically discontinuous and traditional w o r l d o f the t r i b a l w o r d i n t o the cool and u n i f o r m visual medium. M a n y centuries o f ideogrammic use have n o t threatened the seamless w e b o f f a m i l y and t r i b a l subtleties o f Chinese society. O n the other hand, a single genera-

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t i o n o f alphabetic literacy suffices i n A f r i c a today, as i n G a u l t w o thousand years ago, t o release the individual initially, at least, f r o m the tribal w e b . T h i s fact has n o t h i n g t o do w i t h the content of the alphabetized w o r d s ; i t is the result o f the sudden breach between the a u d i t o r y and the visual experience of man. O n l y the phonetic alphabet makes such a sharp division i n experience, giving to its user an eye f o r an ear, and freeing h i m f r o m the t r i b a l trance of resonating w o r d magic and the w e b o f kinship. I t can be argued, then, that the phonetic alphabet, alone, is the technology that has been the means o f creating " c i v i l i z e d man"—the separate individuals equal before a w r i t t e n code o f law. Separateness of the individual, c o n t i n u i t y of space and o f time, and u n i f o r m i t y o f codes are the prime marks of literate and civilized societies. T r i b a l cultures like those o f the I n d i a n and the Chinese may be greatly superior t o the Western cultures, i n the range and delicacy o f their perceptions and expression. H o w e v e r , w e are not here concerned w i t h the question of values, b u t w i t h the configurations of societies. T r i b a l cultures cannot entertain the possibility o f the individual or o f the separate citizen. T h e i r ideas o f spaces and times are neither continuous n o r u n i f o r m , b u t compassional and compressional i n their intensity. I t is i n its p o w e r t o extend patterns of visual u n i f o r m i t y and c o n t i n u i t y that the "message" of the alphabet is f e l t b y cultures. As an intensification and extension o f the visual f u n c t i o n , the phonetic alphabet diminishes the role o f the other senses o f sound and t o u c h and taste i n any literate culture. T h e fact that this does n o t happen i n cultures such as the Chinese, w h i c h use nonphonetic scripts, enables them t o retain a r i c h store o f inclusive perception i n depth of experience that tends t o become eroded i n civilized c u l tures of the phonetic alphabet. F o r the ideogram is an inclusive gestalt, n o t an analytic dissociation o f senses and functions like phonetic w r i t i n g . T h e achievements of the W e s t e r n w o r l d , i t is obvious, are test i m o n y to the tremendous values o f literacy. B u t m a n y people are also disposed t o object that w e have purchased our structure o f specialist technology and values at t o o h i g h a price. Certainly the

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lineal structuring o f rational life b y phonetic literacy has involved us i n an interlocking set o f consistencies that are striking enough t o j u s t i f y a m u c h more extensive i n q u i r y than that o f the present chapter. Perhaps there are better approaches along quite d i f ferent lines; f o r example, consciousness is regarded as the mark o f a rational being, y e t there is nothing lineal or sequential about the total field of awareness that exists i n any moment of consciousness. Consciousness is n o t a verbal process. Yet d u r i n g all our centuries o f phonetic literacy w e have favored the chain of inference as the m a r k o f logic and reason. Chinese w r i t i n g , i n contrast, invests each ideogram w i t h a total i n t u i t i o n of being and reason that allows o n l y a small role to visual sequence as a m a r k o f mental effort and organization. I n W e s t e r n literate society i t is still plausible and acceptable to say that something " f o l l o w s " f r o m something, as i f there were some cause at w o r k that makes such a sequence. I t was D a v i d H u m e w h o , i n the eighteenth century, demonstrated that there is no causality indicated i n any sequence, natural or logical. T h e sequential is merely additive, n o t causative. Hume's argument, said Immanuel K a n t , "awoke me f r o m m y dogmatic slumber." Neither H u m e nor Kant, however, detected the hidden cause o f our Western bias t o w a r d sequence as " l o g i c " i n the a l l pervasive technology o f the alphabet. T o d a y i n the electric age w e feel as free to invent nonlineal logics as w e do to make n o n Euclidean geometries. Even the assembly line, as the method o f analytic sequence f o r mechanizing every k i n d of making and p r o d u c t i o n , is nowadays y i e l d i n g to new forms. O n l y alphabetic cultures have ever mastered connected lineal sequences as pervasive forms o f psychic and social organization. T h e breaking up o f every k i n d of experience i n t o u n i f o r m units i n order t o produce faster action and change of f o r m (applied knowledge) has been the secret o f Western p o w e r over man and nature alike. T h a t is the reason w h y our W e s t e r n industrial programs have quite i n v o l u n t a r i l y been so militant, and o u r m i l i t a r y programs have been so industrial. B o t h are shaped b y the alphabet i n their technique o f transformation and c o n t r o l b y m a k i n g all situations u n i f o r m and continuous. T h i s procedure,

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manifest even i n the Graeco-Roman phase, became more intense w i t h the u n i f o r m i t y and repeatability o f the Gutenberg development. Civilization is b u i l t on literacy because literacy is a u n i f o r m processing o f a culture b y a visual sense extended i n space and time b y the alphabet. I n tribal cultures, experience is arranged b y a dominant a u d i t o r y sense-life that represses visual values. T h e auditory sense, unlike the cool and neutral eye, is hyper-esthetic and delicate and all-inclusive. O r a l cultures act and react at the same time. Phonetic culture endows men w i t h the means of repressing their feelings and emotions w h e n engaged i n action. T o act w i t h o u t reacting, w i t h o u t involvement, is the peculiar advantage o f Western literate man. T h e story o f The Ugly American describes the endless succession o f blunders achieved b y visual and civilized Americans w h e n confronted w i t h the tribal and a u d i t o r y cultures of the East. A s a civilized U N E S C O experiment, r u n n i n g w a t e r — w i t h its lineal organization of pipes—was installed recently i n some Indian v i l lages. Soon the villagers requested that the pipes be removed, f o r i t seemed t o them that the w h o l e social life o f the village had been impoverished w h e n i t was no longer necessary f o r all t o visit the communal w e l l . T o us the pipe is a convenience. W e do n o t t h i n k o f i t as culture or as a p r o d u c t o f literacy, any more than w e t h i n k of literacy as changing our habits, our emotions, or our perceptions. T o nonliterate people, i t is perfectly obvious that the most commonplace conveniences represent total changes i n culture. T h e Russians, less permeated w i t h the patterns o f literate c u l ture than Americans, have m u c h less difficulty i n perceiving and accommodating the Asiatic attitudes. For the W e s t , literacy has l o n g been pipes and taps and streets and assembly lines and inventories. Perhaps most potent o f all as an expression o f literacy is our system of u n i f o r m p r i c i n g that penetrates distant markets and speeds the turn-over o f commodities. Even our ideas of cause and effect i n the literate W e s t have l o n g been i n the f o r m o f things i n sequence and succession, an idea that strikes any tribal or audit o r y culture as quite ridiculous, and one that has lost its prime place i n our o w n n e w physics and b i o l o g y .

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A l l the alphabets i n use i n the W e s t e r n w o r l d , f r o m that o f Russia t o that of the Basques, f r o m that o f Portugal t o that o f Peru, are derivatives o f the Graeco-Roman letters. T h e i r unique separation o f sight and sound f r o m semantic and verbal content made them a most radical technology f o r the translation and homogenization o f cultures. A l l other forms o f w r i t i n g had served merely one culture, and had served t o separate that culture f r o m others. T h e phonetic letters alone could be used t o translate, albeit crudely, the sounds o f any language i n t o one-and-the-same visual code. T o d a y , the e f f o r t o f the Chinese t o use our phonetic letters t o translate their language has r u n i n t o special problems i n the w i d e tonal variations and meanings o f similar sounds. T h i s has led t o the practice o f fragmenting Chinese monosyllables i n t o polysyllables i n order t o eliminate tonal a m b i g u i t y . T h e W e s t e r n phonetic alphabet is n o w at w o r k transforming the central a u d i t o r y features o f the Chinese language and culture i n order that China can also develop the lineal and visual patterns that give central u n i t y and aggregate u n i f o r m power t o W e s t e r n w o r k and organization. A s w e move o u t o f the Gutenberg era o f our o w n culture, w e can more readily discern its p r i m a r y features of homogeneity, u n i f o r m i t y , and c o n t i n u i t y . These were the characteristics that gave the Greeks and Romans their easy ascendancy over the nonliterate barbarians. T h e barbarian or t r i b a l man, then as n o w , was hampered b y cultural pluralism, uniqueness, and discontinuity. T o sum u p , pictographic and hieroglyphic w r i t i n g as used i n Babylonian, M a y a n , and Chinese cultures represents an extension o f the visual sense f o r storing and expediting access t o human experience. A l l o f these forms give pictorial expression t o oral meanings. As such, they approximate the animated cartoon and are extremely u n w i e l d y , r e q u i r i n g many signs f o r the i n f i n i t y of data and operations o f social action. I n contrast, the phonetic alphabet, b y a f e w letters o n l y , was able t o encompass all languages. Such an achievement, however, involved the separation o f b o t h signs and sounds f r o m their semantic and dramatic meanings. N o other system o f w r i t i n g had accomplished this feat. T h e same separation o f sight and sound and meaning that is peculiar t o the phonetic alphabet also extends to its social and

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psychological effects. Literate man undergoes m u c h separation of his imaginative, emotional, and sense life, as Rousseau (and later the Romantic poets and philosophers) proclaimed l o n g ago. T o d a y the mere mention of D . H . Lawrence w i l l serve t o recall the t w e n t i e t h - c e n t u r y efforts made t o by-pass literate man i n order t o recover human "wholeness." I f W e s t e r n literate man undergoes m u c h dissociation of inner sensibility f r o m his use of the alphabet, he also wins his personal freedom t o dissociate himself f r o m clan and f a m i l y . T h i s freedom t o shape an individual career manifested itself i n the ancient w o r l d i n m i l i t a r y life. Careers were open t o talents i n Republican Rome, as m u c h as i n Napoleonic France, and f o r the same reasons. T h e new literacy had created an homogeneous and malleable milieu i n w h i c h the m o b i l i t y o f armed groups and o f ambitious individuals, equally, was as novel as i t was practical.

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I t was n o t u n t i l the advent o f the telegraph that messages c o u l d travel faster than a messenger. Before this, roads and the w r i t ten w o r d were closely interrelated. I t is o n l y since the telegraph that i n f o r m a t i o n has detached itself f r o m such solid c o m modities as stone and papyrus, m u c h as money had earlier detached itself f r o m hides, bullion, and metals, and has ended as paper. T h e t e r m " c o m m u n i c a t i o n " has had an extensive use i n connection w i t h roads and bridges, sea routes, rivers, and canals, even before i t became transformed i n t o " i n f o r m a t i o n movement" i n the elect r i c age. Perhaps there is no more suitable w a y o f defining the character of the electric age than b y first studying the rise o f the idea of transportation as c o m m u n i cation, and then the transition of the idea f r o m transport t o i n f o r m a t i o n b y means o f electricity. T h e w o r d "metaphor" is f r o m the Greek meta plus pherein, t o carry across or transport. I n this book w e are

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concerned w i t h all forms o f transport o f goods and i n f o r m a t i o n , b o t h as metaphor and exchange. Each f o r m o f transport n o t onlycarries, b u t translates and transforms, the sender, the receiver, and the message. T h e use o f any k i n d o f medium or extension o f man alters the patterns o f interdependence among people, as i t alters the ratios among our senses. I t is a persistent theme o f this b o o k that all technologies are extensions o f o u r physical and nervous systems t o increase power and speed. A g a i n , unless there w e r e such increases o f p o w e r and speed, new extensions o f ourselves w o u l d n o t occur or w o u l d be discarded. F o r an increase o f p o w e r or speed i n any k i n d o f g r o u p i n g o f any components whatever is itself a disruption that causes a change o f organization. T h e alteration o f social groupings, and the f o r m a t i o n o f n e w communities, occur w i t h the increased speed o f i n f o r m a t i o n movement b y means o f paper messages and road transport. Such speed-up means m u c h more c o n t r o l at m u c h greater distances. H i s t o r i c a l l y , i t meant the f o r m a t i o n o f the Roman E m p i r e and the disruption of the previous city-states o f the Greek w o r l d . Before the use o f papyrus and alphabet created the incentives f o r b u i l d i n g fast, hard-surface roads, the walled t o w n and the city-state were natural forms that could endure. Village and city-state essentially are forms that include all human needs and functions. W i t h greater speed and, therefore, greater m i l i t a r y c o n t r o l at a distance, the city-state collapsed. Once inclusive and self-contained, its needs and functions were extended i n the specialist activities o f an empire. Speed-up tends t o separate functions, b o t h commercial and political, and accelerat i o n b e y o n d a p o i n t i n any system becomes disruption and breakd o w n . So w h e n A r n o l d T o y n b e e turns, i n A Study of History, t o a massive documentation o f " t h e breakdowns o f civilizations," he begins b y saying: " O n e o f the most conspicuous marks o f disintegration, as w e have already noticed, is . . . w h e n a disintegrating civilisation purchases a reprieve b y submitting t o forcible political unification i n a universal state." Disintegration and reprieve, alike, are the consequence o f ever faster movement o f i n f o r m a t i o n b y couriers o n excellent roads.

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Speed-up creates w h a t some economists refer t o as a centermargin structure. W h e n this becomes too extensive f o r the generating and c o n t r o l center, pieces begin t o detach themselves and t o set up new center-margin systems of their o w n . T h e most familiar example is the story o f the A m e r i c a n colonies o f Great Britain. W h e n the thirteen colonies began t o develop a c o n siderable social and economic life o f their o w n , they felt the need t o become centers themselves, w i t h their o w n margins. T h i s is the time w h e n the original center m a y make a more rigorous e f f o r t o f centralized c o n t r o l o f the margins, as, indeed, Great B r i t a i n d i d . T h e slowness of sea travel p r o v e d altogether inadequate t o the maintenance o f so extensive an empire o n a mere center-margin basis. L a n d powers can more easily attain a unified center-margin pattern than sea powers. I t is the relative slowness o f sea travel that inspires sea powers t o foster multiple centers b y a k i n d o f seeding process. Sea powers thus tend t o create centers w i t h o u t margins, and land empires favor the center-margin structure. Electric speeds create centers everywhere. Margins cease t o exist on this planet. L a c k o f homogeneity i n speed o f i n f o r m a t i o n movement creates diversity o f patterns i n organization. I t is quite predictable, then, that any n e w means o f m o v i n g i n f o r m a t i o n w i l l alter any p o w e r structure whatever. So l o n g as the new means is everywhere available at the same time, there is a possibility that the structure may be changed w i t h o u t b r e a k d o w n . W h e r e there are great discrepancies i n speeds o f movement, as between air and road travel or between telephone and t y p e w r i t e r , serious c o n flicts occur w i t h i n organizations. T h e metropolis o f our time has become a test case f o r such discrepancies. I f homogeneity o f speeds were total, there w o u l d be no rebellion and no breakdown. W i t h p r i n t , political u n i t y via homogeneity became feasible f o r the first time. I n ancient Rome, however, there was o n l y the l i g h t paper manuscript t o pierce the opacity, or t o reduce the discontinuity, o f the t r i b a l villages; and w h e n the paper supplies failed, the roads were vacated, as they were i n our o w n age d u r i n g gas-rationing. T h u s the o l d city-state returned, and feudalism replaced republicanism.

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I t seems obvious enough that technical means o f speed-up should w i p e o u t the independence o f villages and city-states. Whenever speed-up has occurred, the n e w centralist p o w e r always takes action to homogenize as m a n y marginal areas as possible. T h e process that Rome effected b y the phonetic alphabet geared t o its paper routes has been o c c u r r i n g i n Russia f o r the last cent u r y . A g a i n , f r o m the current example o f A f r i c a w e can observe h o w v e r y m u c h visual processing o f the human psyche b y alphabetic means w i l l be needed before any appreciable degree o f homogenized social organization is possible. M u c h of this visual processing was done i n the ancient w o r l d b y nonliterate technologies, as i n Assyria. T h e phonetic alphabet has no r i v a l , however, as a translator o f man out o f the closed t r i b a l echochamber i n t o the neutral visual w o r l d of lineal organization. T h e situation o f A f r i c a t o d a y is complicated b y the n e w electronic technology. W e s t e r n man is himself being de-Westernized b y his o w n n e w speed-up, as m u c h as the Africans are being detribalized b y our o l d p r i n t and industrial technology. I f w e understood our o w n media o l d and new, these confusions and disruptions could be programmed and synchronized. T h e v e r y success w e enjoy i n specializing and separating functions i n order t o have speed-up, however, is at the same time the cause o f inattent i o n and unawareness o f the situation. I t has ever been thus i n the W e s t e r n w o r l d at least. Self-consciousness o f the causes and limits o f one's o w n culture seems t o threaten the ego structure and is, therefore, avoided. Nietzsche said understanding stops action, and men o f action seem t o have an i n t u i t i o n o f the fact i n their shunn i n g the dangers o f comprehension. T h e p o i n t o f the matter o f speed-up b y wheel, road, and paper is the extension o f power i n an ever more homogeneous and u n i f o r m space. T h u s the real potential o f the Roman technology was n o t realized u n t i l p r i n t i n g had given road and wheel a m u c h greater speed than that o f the Roman vortex. Y e t the speed-up o f the electronic age is as disrupting f o r literate, lineal, and W e s t e r n man as the Roman paper routes were f o r tribal villagers. O u r speed-up today is n o t a slow explosion o u t w a r d f r o m center t o margins b u t an instant implosion and an interfusion

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o f space and functions. O u r specialist and fragmented civilization o f center-margin structure is suddenly experiencing an instantaneous reassembling o f all its mechanized bits into an organic w h o l e . T h i s is the n e w w o r l d o f the global village. T h e village, as M u m f o r d explains i n The City in History, had achieved a social and institutional extension o f all human faculties. Speed-up and c i t y aggregates o n l y served t o separate these f r o m one another i n more specialist forms. T h e electronic age cannot sustain the v e r y l o w gear o f a center-margin structure such as w e associate w i t h the past t w o thousand years o f the W e s t e r n w o r l d . N o r is this a question o f values. I f w e understood our older media, such as roads and the w r i t t e n w o r d , and i f w e valued their human effects sufficiently, w e c o u l d reduce or even eliminate the elect r o n i c factor f r o m our lives. Is there an instance o f any culture that understood the technology that sustained its structure and was prepared t o keep i t that way? I f so, that w o u l d be an instance o f values or reasoned preference. T h e values or preferences that arise f r o m the mere automatic operation o f this or that technology i n our social lives are n o t capable o f being perpetuated. I n the chapter o n the wheel i t w i l l be shown that transport w i t h o u t wheels had played a b i g role before the wheel, some o f w h i c h was b y sledge, over b o t h snow and bogs. M u c h o f i t was b y pack animal—woman being the first pack animal. M o s t w h e e l less transport i n the past, however, was b y river and b y sea, a fact that is today as r i c h l y expressed as ever i n the location and f o r m o f the great cities of the w o r l d . Some writers have observed that man's oldest beast o f burden was w o m a n , because the male had to be free t o r u n interference f o r the w o m a n , as ball-carrier, as i t were. B u t that phase belonged to the prewheel stage o f transport, w h e n there was o n l y the tractless waste o f man the hunter and food-gatherer. T o d a y , w h e n the greatest volume o f transport consists i n the m o v i n g o f i n f o r m a t i o n , the wheel and the road are undergoing recession and obsolescence; b u t i n the first i n stance, given the pressure f o r , and f r o m , wheels, there had t o be roads t o accommodate them. Settlements had created the impulse f o r exchange and f o r the increasing movement o f r a w material and produce f r o m countryside to processing centers, where there

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was division o f labor and specialist c r a f t skills. Improvement of wheel and road more and more b r o u g h t the t o w n t o the c o u n t r y i n a reciprocal spongelike action o f give-and-take. I t is a process w e have seen i n this century w i t h the motorcar. Great improvements i n roads b r o u g h t the c i t y more and more t o the c o u n t r y . T h e road became a substitute f o r the c o u n t r y b y the time people began t o talk about " t a k i n g a spin i n the c o u n t r y . " W i t h superhighways the road became a w a l l between man and the c o u n t r y . T h e n came the stage of the h i g h w a y as c i t y , a c i t y stretching continuously across the continent, dissolving all earlier cities into the sprawling aggregates that desolate their populations today. W i t h air transport comes a f u r t h e r disruption o f the o l d t o w n c o u n t r y complex that had occurred w i t h wheel and road. W i t h the plane the cities began to have the same slender relation to human needs that museums do. T h e y became corridors o f showcases echoing the departing forms o f industrial assembly lines. T h e road is, then, used less and less f o r travel, and more and more f o r recreation. T h e traveler n o w turns t o the airways, and thereby ceases to experience the act o f traveling. As people used to say that an ocean liner m i g h t as w e l l be a hotel i n a b i g c i t y , the jet traveler, whether he is over T o k y o or N e w Y o r k , m i g h t just as w e l l be i n a cocktail lounge so far as travel experience is concerned. H e w i l l begin to travel o n l y after he lands. Meantime, the countryside, as oriented and fashioned b y plane, b y h i g h w a y , and b y electric information-gathering, tends t o become once more the nomadic trackless area that preceded the wheel. T h e beatniks gather o n the sands to meditate haiku. T h e principal factors i n media impact o n existing social forms are acceleration and disruption. T o d a y the acceleration tends to be total, and thus ends space as the main factor i n social arrangements. T o y n b e e sees the acceleration factor as translating the physical i n t o moral problems, p o i n t i n g to the antique road c r o w d e d w i t h dog carts, wagons, and rickshaws as f u l l o f m i n o r nuisance, b u t also m i n o r dangers. Further, as the forces impelling traffic m o u n t i n power, there is no more problem o f hauling and c a r r y i n g , b u t the physical problem is translated i n t o a psychological one as the annihilation o f space permits easy annihilation

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o f travelers as w e l l . T h i s principle applies t o all media study. A l l means o f interchange and o f human interassociation tend t o i m prove b y acceleration. Speed, i n t u r n , accentuates problems o f f o r m and structure. T h e older arrangements had n o t been made w i t h a v i e w to such speeds, and people begin t o sense a drainingaway o f life values as they t r y t o make the o l d physical forms adjust t o the new and speedier movement. These problems, however, are n o t new. Julius Caesar's first act u p o n assuming p o w e r was to restrict the n i g h t movement o f wheeled vehicles i n the c i t y of Rome i n order t o p e r m i t sleep. I m p r o v e d transport i n the Renaissance t u r n e d the medieval walled towns i n t o slums. Prior to the considerable diffusion o f p o w e r t h r o u g h alphabet and papyrus, even the attempts o f kings t o extend their r u l e i n spatial terms were opposed at home b y the priestly bureaucracies. T h e i r complex and u n w i e l d y media o f stone inscription made wide-ranging empires appear v e r y dangerous t o such static monopolies. T h e struggles between those w h o exercised p o w e r over the hearts o f men and those w h o sought t o c o n t r o l the p h y s i cal resources o f nations were n o t o f one time and place. I n the O l d Testament, just this k i n d o f struggle is reported i n the Book o f Samuel ( I , v i i i ) w h e n the children o f Israel besought Samuel t o give them a k i n g . Samuel explained t o t h e m the nature o f k i n g l y , as opposed to priestly, rule: This w i l l be the manner of the K i n g that shall reign over you: he w i l l take your sons, and appoint them unto him f o r his chariots; and they shall run before his chariots: and he w i l l appoint them unto him f o r captains of thousands, and captains of fifties; and he w i l l set some to plough his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and the instruments of his chariots. A n d he w i l l take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks and to be bakers. A n d he w i l l take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. Paradoxically, the effect of the wheel and o f paper i n o r ganizing new p o w e r structures was n o t t o decentralize b u t t o centralize. A speed-up i n communications always enables a

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central a u t h o r i t y t o extend its operations t o more distant margins. T h e i n t r o d u c t i o n o f alphabet and papyrus meant that m a n y more people had t o be trained as scribes and administrators. H o w e v e r , the resulting extension o f homogenization and of u n i f o r m t r a i n i n g d i d n o t come i n t o play i n the ancient or medieval w o r l d t o any great degree. I t was n o t really u n t i l the mechanization o f w r i t i n g i n the Renaissance that intensely unified and centralized p o w e r was possible. Since this process is still o c c u r r i n g , i t should be easy f o r us t o see that i t was i n the armies o f E g y p t and Rome that a k i n d o f democratization b y u n i f o r m technological education occurred. Careers were then open t o talents f o r those w i t h literate training. I n the chapter o n the w r i t t e n w o r d w e saw h o w p h o netic w r i t i n g translated tribal man i n t o a visual w o r l d and i n v i t e d h i m t o undertake the visual organization o f space. T h e priestly groups i n the temples had been more concerned w i t h the records o f the past and w i t h the c o n t r o l o f the inner space o f the unseen than w i t h o u t w a r d m i l i t a r y conquest. Hence, there was a clash between the priestly monopolizers o f knowledge and those w h o wished t o apply i t abroad as new conquest and power. ( T h i s same clash n o w recurs between the university and the business w o r l d . ) I t was this k i n d o f r i v a l r y that inspired Ptolemy I I to establish the great l i b r a r y at Alexandria as a center o f imperial p o w e r . T h e huge staff o f c i v i l servants and scribes assigned t o m a n y specialist tasks was an antithetic and countervailing force t o the E g y p t i a n priesthood. T h e l i b r a r y could serve the political organization of empire i n a w a y that d i d not interest the priesthood at all. A not-dissimilar r i v a l r y is developing today between the atomic scientists and those w h o are m a i n l y concerned w i t h p o w e r . I f w e realize that the c i t y as center was i n the first instance an aggregate o f threatened villagers, i t is then easier f o r us t o grasp h o w such harassed companies o f refugees m i g h t f a n o u t i n t o an empire. T h e city-state as a f o r m was n o t a response t o peaceful commercial development, b u t a huddling f o r security amidst anarchy and dissolution. T h u s the Greek city-state was a t r i b a l f o r m of inclusive and integral c o m m u n i t y , quite unlike the specialist cities that g r e w u p as extensions of R o m a n m i l i t a r y

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expansion. T h e Greek city-states eventually disintegrated b y the usual action of specialist t r a d i n g and the separation of functions that M u m f o r d portrays i n The City in History. T h e Roman cities began that way—as specialist operations o f the central power. T h e Greek cities ended that w a y . I f a c i t y undertakes r u r a l trade, i t sets u p at once a centerm a r g i n relation w i t h the r u r a l area i n question. T h a t relation involves taking staples and r a w produce f r o m the c o u n t r y i n exchange f o r specialist products o f the craftsman. I f , on the other hand, the same c i t y attempts t o engage i n overseas trade, i t is more natural to "seed" another c i t y center, as the Greeks d i d , rather than t o deal w i t h the overseas area as a specialized margin or r a w material supply. A brief review o f the structural changes i n the organization o f space as they resulted f r o m wheel, road, and papyrus could go as f o l l o w s : T h e r e was first the village, w h i c h lacked all of these g r o u p extensions o f the private physical b o d y . T h e village, h o w ever, was already a f o r m o f c o m m u n i t y different f r o m that o f food-gathering hunters and fishers, f o r villagers may be sedent a r y and m a y begin a division of labor and functions. T h e i r being congregated is, itself, a f o r m o f acceleration o f human activities w h i c h provides m o m e n t u m f o r f u r t h e r separation and specializat i o n o f action. Such are the conditions f o r the extension of feetas-wheel t o speed p r o d u c t i o n and exchange. These are, also, the conditions that intensify communal conflicts and ruptures that send men huddling i n t o ever larger aggregates, i n order t o resist the accelerated activities o f other communities. T h e villages are swept u p i n t o the city-state b y w a y o f resistance and f o r the purpose o f security and protection. T h e village had institutionalized all human functions i n forms o f l o w intensity. I n this m i l d f o r m everyone could play many roles. Participation was h i g h , and organization was l o w . T h i s is the f o r mula f o r stability i n any t y p e o f organization. Nevertheless, the enlargement of village forms i n the city-state called f o r greater intensity and the inevitable separation o f functions to cope w i t h this intensity and competition. T h e villagers had all participated

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i n the seasonal rituals that i n the c i t y became the specialized Greek drama. M u m f o r d feels that " T h e village measure prevailed i n the development o f the Greek cities, d o w n t o the f o u r t h cent u r y . . . " (The City in History). I t is this extension and translat i o n o f the human organs i n t o the village model w i t h o u t loss of corporal u n i t y that M u m f o r d uses as a criterion of excellence f o r c i t y forms i n any time or locale. T h i s biological approach to the man-made environment is sought today once more i n the electric age. H o w strange that the idea o f the " h u m a n scale" should have seemed quite w i t h o u t appeal d u r i n g the mechanical centuries. T h e natural tendency o f the enlarged c o m m u n i t y of the c i t y is t o increase the intensity and accelerate functions o f every sort, whether o f speech, or crafts, o r currency and exchange. T h i s , i n t u r n , implies an inevitable extension o f these actions b y subdivision or, w h a t is the same t h i n g , new invention. So that even t h o u g h the c i t y was f o r m e d as a k i n d o f protective hide or shield f o r man, this protective layer was purchased at the cost o f maximized struggle w i t h i n the walls. W a r games such as those described b y Herodotus began as r i t u a l blood baths between the c i t i zenry. Rostrum, l a w courts, and marketplace all acquired the i n tense image of divisive competition that is nowadays called "the rat race." Nevertheless, i t was amidst such irritations that man produced his greatest inventions as counter-irritants. These i n ventions were extensions o f himself b y means o f concentrated t o i l , b y w h i c h he hoped to neutralize distress. T h e Greek w o r d ponos or " t o i l , " was a t e r m used b y Hippocrates, the father o f medicine, t o describe the f i g h t o f the b o d y i n disease. T o d a y this idea is called homeostasis, or equilibrium as a strategy o f the stayi n g p o w e r o f any b o d y . A l l organizations, b u t especially biological ones, struggle t o remain constant i n their inner c o n d i t i o n amidst the variations o f outer shock and change. T h e man-made social environment as an extension o f man's physical b o d y is no except i o n . T h e c i t y , as a f o r m o f the b o d y politic, responds t o new pressures and irritations b y resourceful new extensions—always i n the effort t o exert staying p o w e r , constancy, equilibrium, and homeostasis. y

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T h e c i t y , having been f o r m e d f o r protection, unexpectedly generated fierce intensities and new h y b r i d energies f r o m accelerated interplay o f functions and knowledge. I t burst f o r t h i n t o aggression. T h e alarm o f the village, f o l l o w e d b y the resistance o f the c i t y , expanded i n t o the exhaustion and inertia of empire. These three stages o f the disease and i r r i t a t i o n syndrome were felt, b y those l i v i n g t h r o u g h them, as normal physical expressions o f counter-irritant recovery f r o m disease. T h e t h i r d stage o f struggle f o r equilibrium among the forces w i t h i n the c i t y t o o k the f o r m o f empire, or a universal state, that generated the extension of human senses i n wheel, road, and alphabet. W e can sympathize w i t h those w h o first saw i n these tools a providential means o f b r i n g i n g order t o distant areas o f turbulence and anarchy. These tools w o u l d have seemed a glorious f o r m of " f o r e i g n aid," extending the blessings of the center to the barbarian margins. A t this moment, f o r example, w e are quite i n the dark about the political implications of Telstar. B y outering these satellites as extensions of o u r nervous system, there is an automatic response i n all the organs of the b o d y politic of mankind. Such new intensity o f p r o x i m i t y imposed b y Telstar calls f o r radical rearrangement of all organs i n order t o maintain staying power and equilibrium. T h e teaching and learning process f o r every c h i l d w i l l be affected sooner rather than later. T h e time factor i n every decision o f business and finance w i l l acquire n e w patterns. A m o n g the peoples o f the w o r l d strange n e w vortices of p o w e r w i l l appear unexpectedly. T h e f u l l - b l o w n c i t y coincides w i t h the development of writing—especially o f phonetic w r i t i n g , the specialist f o r m of w r i t i n g that makes a division between sight and sound. I t was w i t h this instrument that Rome was able t o reduce the tribal areas to some visual order. T h e effects o f phonetic literacy do n o t depend u p o n persuasion or cajolery f o r their acceptance. T h i s technology f o r translating the resonating t r i b a l w o r l d into E u clidean lineality and visuality is automatic. Roman roads and Roman streets were u n i f o r m and repeatable wherever they occurred. T h e r e was no adaptation to the contours of local h i l l or

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custom. W i t h the decline o f papyrus supplies, the wheeled traffic stopped on these roads, t o o . D e p r i v a t i o n of papyrus, resulting f r o m the Roman loss o f E g y p t , meant the decline of bureaucracy, and o f a r m y organization as w e l l . T h u s the medieval w o r l d g r e w up w i t h o u t u n i f o r m roads or cities or bureaucracies, and i t f o u g h t the wheel, as later c i t y forms f o u g h t the railways; and as w e , today, fight the automobile. F o r n e w speed and p o w e r are never compatible w i t h existing spatial and social arrangements. W r i t i n g about the n e w straight avenues of the seventeenthcentury cities, M u m f o r d points t o a factor that was also present i n the Roman c i t y w i t h its wheeled traffic; namely, the need f o r broad straight avenues t o speed m i l i t a r y movements, and t o express the p o m p and circumstance o f power. I n the Roman w o r l d the a r m y was the w o r k force o f a mechanized wealthcreating process. B y means o f soldiers as u n i f o r m and replaceable parts, the Roman m i l i t a r y machine made and delivered the goods, v e r y m u c h i n the manner of industry d u r i n g the early phases of the industrial revolution. T r a d e f o l l o w e d the legions. M o r e than that, the legions w e r e the industrial machine, itself; and numerous n e w cities were like n e w factories manned b y u n i f o r m l y trained a r m y personnel. W i t h the spread o f literacy after p r i n t i n g , the b o n d between the u n i f o r m e d soldier and the wealth-making f a c t o r y hand became less visible. I t was obvious enough i n Napoleon's armies. Napoleon, w i t h his citizen-armies, was the industrial r e v o l u t i o n itself, as i t reached areas l o n g protected from it. T h e Roman a r m y as a mobile, industrial wealth-making force created i n addition a vast consumer public i n the Roman towns. Division o f labor always creates a separation between producer and consumer, even as i t tends t o separate the place o f w o r k and the l i v i n g space. Before Roman literate bureaucracy, n o t h i n g comparable t o the Roman consumer specialists had been seen i n the w o r l d . T h i s fact was institutionalized i n the individual k n o w n as "parasite," and i n the social institution o f the gladiatorial games. (Panem et circenses.) T h e private sponge and the collective sponge, b o t h reaching o u t f o r their rations o f sensation,

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achieved a horrible distinctness and c l a r i t y that matched the r a w p o w e r o f the predatory a r m y machine. W i t h the c u t t i n g - o f f of the supplies o f papyrus b y the M o hammedans, the Mediterranean, l o n g a Roman lake, became a M u s l i m lake, and the Roman center collapsed. W h a t had been the margins of this center-margin structure became independent centers on a new feudal, structural base. T h e Roman center c o l lapsed b y the fifth c e n t u r y A . D . as wheel, road, and paper d w i n dled i n t o a ghostly paradigm o f former power. Papyrus never returned. Byzantium, like the medieval centers, relied heavily on parchment, b u t this was too expensive and scarce a material t o speed commerce or even education. I t was paper f r o m China, gradually m a k i n g its w a y t h r o u g h the Near East t o Europe, that accelerated education and commerce steadily f r o m the eleventh century, and provided the basis f o r "the Renaissance o f the t w e l f t h c e n t u r y , " popularizing prints and, finally, m a k i n g p r i n t i n g possible b y the fifteenth century. W i t h the m o v i n g of i n f o r m a t i o n i n p r i n t e d f o r m , the wheel and the road came i n t o play again after having been i n abeyance f o r a thousand years. I n England, pressure f r o m the press b r o u g h t about hard-surface roads i n the eighteenth century, w i t h all the p o p ulation and industrial rearrangement that entailed. P r i n t , or mechanized w r i t i n g , i n t r o d u c e d a separation and extension o f human functions unimaginable even i n Roman times. I t was o n l y natural, therefore, that greatly increased wheel speeds, b o t h o n road and i n f a c t o r y , should be related to the alphabet that had once done a similar job of speed-up and specialization i n the ancient w o r l d . Speed, at least i n its l o w e r reaches o f the mechanical order, always operates to separate, t o extend, and t o a m p l i f y functions o f the b o d y . Even specialist learning i n higher education proceeds b y i g n o r i n g interrelationships; f o r such complex awareness slows d o w n the achieving o f expertness. T h e post roads o f England were, f o r the most part, paid f o r b y the newspapers. T h e rapid increase o f traffic b r o u g h t i n the r a i l w a y , that accommodated a more specialized f o r m of wheel than the road. T h e story o f m o d e r n America that began w i t h the dis-

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covery o f the w h i t e man b y the Indians, as a w a g has t r u l y said, q u i c k l y passed f r o m exploration b y canoe t o development b y railway. For three centuries Europe invested i n America f o r its fish and its furs. T h e fishing schooner and the canoe preceded the road and the postal route as marks o f our N o r t h A m e r i c a n spatial organization. T h e European investors i n the f u r trade naturally d i d n o t w a n t the trapping lines o v e r r u n b y T o m Sawyers and H u c k Finns. T h e y f o u g h t land surveyors and settlers, like W a s h i n g t o n and Jefferson, w h o simply w o u l d n o t t h i n k i n terms of m i n k . T h u s the W a r o f Independence was deeply i n volved i n media and staple rivalries. A n y new m e d i u m , b y its acceleration, disrupts the lives and investments o f w h o l e c o m munities. I t was the r a i l w a y that raised the art of w a r t o unheardo f intensity, m a k i n g the A m e r i c a n C i v i l W a r the first major conflict f o u g h t b y rail, and causing i t t o be studied and admired b y all European general staffs, w h o had n o t y e t had an o p p o r t u n i t y t o use railways f o r a general blood-letting. W a r is never a n y t h i n g less than accelerated technological change. I t begins w h e n some notable disequilibrium among existi n g structures has been b r o u g h t about b y inequality o f rates o f g r o w t h . T h e v e r y late industrialization and unification o f Germ a n y had l e f t her o u t o f the race f o r staples and colonies f o r many years. As the Napoleonic wars were technologically a sort o f catching-up of France w i t h England, the First W o r l d W a r was itself a major phase o f the final industrialization o f G e r m a n y and America. As Rome had n o t s h o w n before, and Russia has shown today, militarism is itself the main route o f technological education and acceleration f o r lagging areas. A l m o s t unanimous enthusiasm f o r i m p r o v e d routes o f land transportation f o l l o w e d the W a r o f 1812. Furthermore, the British blockade o f the A t l a n t i c coast had compelled an unprecedented amount o f land carriage, thus emphasizing the unsatisfactory character o f the highways. W a r is certainly a f o r m o f emphasis that delivers m a n y a telling t o u c h t o lagging social attention. H o w e v e r , i n the v e r y H o t Peace since the Second W a r , i t is the highways o f the m i n d that have been f o u n d inadequate. M a n y have felt dissatisfaction w i t h our educational methods since Sput-

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n i k , i n exactly the same spirit that many complained about the highways d u r i n g the W a r of 1812. N o w that man has extended his central nervous system b y electric technology, the field o f battle has shifted t o mental imagemaking-and-breaking, b o t h i n w a r and i n business. U n t i l the electric age, higher education had been a privilege and a l u x u r y f o r the leisured classes; today i t has become a necessity f o r p r o duction and survival. N o w , w h e n i n f o r m a t i o n itself is the main traffic, the need f o r advanced knowledge presses o n the spirits o f the most routine-ridden minds. So sudden an upsurge of academic t r a i n i n g i n t o the marketplace has i n i t the quality of classical peripety or reversal, and the result has been a w i l d g u f f a w f r o m the gallery and the campus. T h e hilarity, however, w i l l die d o w n as the Executive Suites are taken over b y the Ph.D.s. F o r an insight i n t o the ways i n w h i c h the acceleration o f wheel and road and paper rescramble population and settlement patterns, let us glance at some instances provided b y Oscar H a n d l i n i n his study Boston's Immigrants. I n 1790, he tells us, Boston was a compact u n i t w i t h all workers and traders l i v i n g i n sight o f each other, so that there was no tendency to section residential areas on a class basis: " B u t as the t o w n grew, as the o u t l y i n g districts became more accessible, the people spread out and at the same time were localized i n distinctive areas." T h a t one sentence capsulates the theme o f this chapter. T h e sentence can be generalized t o include the art of w r i t i n g : " A s knowledge was spread o u t visually and as i t became more accessible i n alphabetic f o r m , i t was localized and divided i n t o specialties." U p t o the p o i n t just short of electrification, increase o f speed produces d i v i sion o f f u n c t i o n , and o f social classes, and of knowledge. A t electric speed, however, all that is reversed. Implosion and contraction then replace mechanical explosion and expansion. I f the H a n d l i n f o r m u l a is extended t o p o w e r , i t becomes: " A s p o w e r g r e w , and as o u t l y i n g areas became accessible t o power, i t was localized i n distinctive delegated jobs and functions." T h i s f o r m u l a is a principle o f acceleration at all levels of human o r ganization. I t concerns especially those extensions of our physical bodies that appear i n wheel and road and paper messages. N o w

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that w e have extended n o t just our physical organs b u t the nervous system, itself, i n electric technology, the principle o f specialism and division as a factor o f speed no longer applies. W h e n i n f o r m a t i o n moves at the speed o f signals i n the central nervous system, man is confronted w i t h the obsolescence o f all earlier forms of acceleration, such as road and rail. W h a t emerges is a total field of inclusive awareness. T h e o l d patterns o f psychic and social adjustment become irrelevant. U n t i l the 1820s, H a n d l i n tells us, Bostonians w a l k e d to and f r o , or used private conveyances. H o r s e - d r a w n buses were i n t r o duced i n 1826, and these speeded u p and extended business a great deal. Meantime the speed-up o f i n d u s t r y i n England had extended business i n t o the r u r a l areas, dislodging many f r o m the land and increasing the rate o f i m m i g r a t i o n . Sea transport o f immigrants became lucrative and encouraged a great speed-up o f ocean transp o r t . T h e n the Cunard L i n e was subsidized b y the British government i n order t o ensure s w i f t contact w i t h the colonies. T h e railways soon l i n k e d into this Cunard service, t o convey mail and immigrants inland. A l t h o u g h A m e r i c a developed a massive service o f inland canals and river steamboats, t h e y were n o t geared t o the speeding wheels of the n e w industrial p r o d u c t i o n . T h e railroad was needed t o cope w i t h mechanized p r o d u c t i o n , as m u c h as t o span the great distances o f the continent. T h e steam railroad as an accelerator proved t o be one o f the most revolutionary of all extensions o f our physical bodies, creating a n e w political centralism and a new k i n d of urban shape and size. I t is t o the railroad that the American c i t y owes its abstract g r i d layout, and the nonorganic separation o f p r o d u c t i o n , consumption, and residence. I t is the motorcar that scrambled the abstract shape o f the industrial t o w n , m i x i n g up its separated functions t o a degree that has frustrated and baffled b o t h planner and citizen. I t remained f o r the airplane to complete the confusion b y a m p l i f y i n g the m o b i l i t y of the citizen to the p o i n t where urban space as such was irrelevant. M e t r o p o l i t a n space is equally irrelevant f o r the telephone, the telegraph, the radio, and television. W h a t the t o w n planners call "the human scale" i n discussing ideal urban spaces is equally

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unrelated to these electric forms. O u r electric extensions o f ourselves simply by-pass space and time, and create problems o f human involvement and organization f o r w h i c h there is no precedent. W e may y e t yearn f o r the simple days o f the automobile and the superhighway.

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H i t l e r made a special h o r r o r o f the V e r sailles T r e a t y because i t had deflated the German a r m y . A f t e r 1870 the heel-clicki n g members o f the German a r m y had become the n e w symbol o f t r i b a l u n i t y and power. I n England and America the same sense o f numerical grandeur f r o m sheer numbers was associated w i t h the m o u n t i n g o u t p u t o f i n d u s t r y , and the statistics o f w e a l t h and p r o d u c t i o n : "tanks a m i l l i o n . " T h e p o w e r o f sheer numbers, i n wealth o r i n crowds, t o set u p a d y namic drive t o w a r d g r o w t h and aggrandizement is mysterious. Elias Canetti i n Crowds and Power illustrates the p r o f o u n d tie between monetary inflation and c r o w d behavior. H e is baffled b y our failure t o study inflation as a c r o w d phenomenon, since its effects o n o u r modern w o r l d are pervasive. T h e drive t o w a r d u n limited g r o w t h inherent i n any k i n d o f c r o w d , heap, o r horde w o u l d seem t o l i n k economic and population inflation.

Number/107 I n the theater, at a ball, at a ball game, i n church, every i n dividual enjoys all those others present. T h e pleasure o f being among the masses is the sense of the j o y i n the multiplication of numbers, w h i c h has l o n g been suspect among the literate members o f W e s t e r n society. I n such society, the separation o f the individual f r o m the g r o u p i n space ( p r i v a c y ) , and i n t h o u g h t ( " p o i n t of v i e w " ) , and i n w o r k (specialism), has had the cultural and technological supp o r t o f literacy, and its attendant galaxy o f fragmented industrial and political institutions. B u t the p o w e r of the printed w o r d t o create the homogenized social man g r e w steadily u n t i l our time, creating the paradox o f the "mass m i n d " and the mass militarism o f citizen armies. Pushed t o the mechanized extreme, letters have o f t e n seemed t o produce effects opposite t o civilization, just as n u m b e r i n g i n earlier times seemed t o break tribal u n i t y , as the O l d Testament declares ( " A n d Satan rose u p against Israel, and moved D a v i d to number Israel"). Phonetic letters and numbers were the first means of fragmenting and detribalizing man. T h r o u g h o u t W e s t e r n history w e have traditionally and r i g h t l y regarded letters as the source of civilization, and looked t o our literatures as the hallmark of civilized attainment. Y e t all along, there has been w i t h us a shadow o f number, the language o f science. I n isolation, number is as mysterious as w r i t i n g . Seen as an extension of our physical bodies, i t becomes quite intelligible. Just as w r i t i n g is an extension and separation of our most neutral and objective sense, the sense o f sight, number is an extension and separation of our most intimate and interrelating activity, our sense o f touch. T h i s f a c u l t y of t o u c h , called the " h a p t i c " sense b y the Greeks, was popularized as such b y the Bauhaus p r o g r a m of sensuous education, t h r o u g h the w o r k o f Paul Klee, W a l t e r Gropius, and m a n y others i n the G e r m a n y o f the 1920s. T h e sense of t o u c h , as o f f e r i n g a k i n d of nervous system or organic u n i t y i n the w o r k of art, has obsessed the minds of the artists since the time o f Cézanne. F o r more than a century n o w artists have t r i e d t o meet the challenge of the electric age b y investing the tactile sense w i t h the role o f a nervous system f o r u n i f y i n g all the others.

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Paradoxically, this has been achieved b y "abstract a r t , " w h i c h offers a central nervous system f o r a w o r k o f art, rather than the conventional husk o f the o l d pictorial image. M o r e and more i t has occurred t o people that the sense o f t o u c h is necessary t o integral existence. T h e weightless occupant o f the space capsule has t o f i g h t to retain the integrating sense o f t o u c h . O u r mechanical technologies f o r extending and separating the functions of our physical beings have b r o u g h t us near to a state of disintegration b y p u t t i n g us out o f t o u c h w i t h ourselves. I t may v e r y w e l l be that i n our conscious inner lives the interplay among our senses is w h a t constitutes the sense o f t o u c h . Perhaps touch is n o t just skin contact w i t h things, b u t the v e r y life of things i n the mind? T h e Greeks had the n o t i o n of a consensus or a f a c u l t y o f " c o m m o n sense" that translated each sense i n t o each other sense, and conferred consciousness o n man. T o d a y , w h e n w e have extended all parts o f our bodies and senses b y technolo g y , w e are haunted b y the need f o r an outer consensus of techn o l o g y and experience that w o u l d raise our communal lives to the level of a w o r l d - w i d e consensus. W h e n w e have achieved a w o r l d - w i d e fragmentation, i t is n o t unnatural t o t h i n k about a w o r l d - w i d e integration. Such a universality of conscious being f o r m a n k i n d was dreamt o f b y Dante, w h o believed that men w o u l d remain mere broken fragments u n t i l t h e y should be united i n an inclusive consciousness. W h a t w e have today, instead o f a social conciousness electrically ordered, however, is a private subconsciousness o r individual " p o i n t o f v i e w " rigorously imposed b y older mechanical technology. T h i s is a perfectly natural result o f " c u l t u r e l a g " or conflict, i n a w o r l d suspended between t w o technologies. T h e ancient w o r l d associated number magically w i t h the properties o f physical things, and w i t h the necessary causes o f things, m u c h as science has tended u n t i l recent times t o reduce all objects t o numerical quantities. I n any and all o f its manifestations, however, number seems t o have b o t h a u d i t o r y and repetitive resonance, and a tactile dimension as w e l l . I t is the quality o f number that explains its p o w e r t o create the effect of an icon or an inclusive compressed image. Such

Number/109 is its use i n newspaper and magazine reporting, as : " C y c l i s t John Jameson, 12, Collides w i t h Bus," or " W i l l i a m Samson, 51, N e w Vice-President i n Charge of Brooms." B y rule o f t h u m b the journalists have discovered the iconic p o w e r o f number. Since H e n r i Bergson and the Bauhaus g r o u p o f artists, to say n o t h i n g o f Jung and F r e u d , the nonliterate and even antiliterate values o f tribal man have i n general received enthusiastic study and p r o m o t i o n . For m a n y European artists and intellectuals, jazz became one o f the r a l l y i n g points i n their quest f o r the integral Romantic Image. T h e u n c r i t i c a l enthusiasm o f the European i n tellectual f o r tribal culture appears i n the exclamation of the architect L e Corbusier on first seeing Manhattan: " I t is hot-jazz i n stone." I t appears again i n the artist M o h o l y - N a g y ' s account o f his visit to a San Francisco night club i n 1940. A N e g r o band was p l a y i n g w i t h zest and laughter. Suddenly a player intoned, "One million and three" and was answered: "One million and seven and a half." T h e n another sang, "Eleven" and another, "Twenty-one" T h e n amidst " h a p p y laughter and shrill singing the numbers t o o k over the place." M o h o l y - N a g y notes h o w , t o Europeans, America seems t o be the land of abstractions, where numbers have taken o n an existence o f their o w n i n phrases like "57 Varieties," "the 5 and 10," o r "7 U p " and " b e h i n d the 8-ball." I t figures. Perhaps this is a k i n d o f echo of an industrial culture that depends heavily o n prices, charts, and figures. T a k e 36-24-36. Numbers cannot become more sensuously tactile than w h e n m u m b l e d as the magic f o r m u l a f o r the female figure w h i l e the haptic hand sweeps the air. Baudelaire had the true i n t u i t i o n o f number as a tactile hand or nervous system f o r interrelating separate units, w h e n he said that "number is w i t h i n the individual. Intoxication is a n u m ber." T h a t explains w h y "the pleasure o f being i n a c r o w d is a mysterious expression o f delight i n the multiplication of number." N u m b e r , that is t o say, is n o t o n l y auditory and resonant, like the spoken w o r d , b u t originates i n the sense of t o u c h , of w h i c h i t is an extension. T h e statistical aggregation or c r o w d i n g o f numbers yields the current cave-drawings or finger-paintings o f the statisticians' charts. I n every sense, the amassing of numbers

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statistically gives man a new influx o f p r i m i t i v e i n t u i t i o n and magically subconscious awareness, whether o f public taste or feeling: " Y o u feel better satisfied w h e n y o u use w e l l - k n o w n brands." L i k e money and clocks and all other forms o f measurement, numbers acquired a separate life and intensity w i t h the g r o w t h of literacy. Nonliterate societies had small use f o r numbers, and today the nonliterate digital computer substitutes "yes" and " n o " f o r numbers. T h e computer is strong o n contours, weak o n digits. I n effect, then, the electric age brings number back i n t o u n i t y w i t h visual and a u d i t o r y experience, f o r good or i l l . Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West originated i n large part f r o m his concern w i t h the n e w mathematics. N o n Euclidean geometries, o n one hand, and the rise o f Functions i n number theory, o n the other, seemed t o Spengler t o spell the end o f Western man. H e had n o t grasped the fact that the invention o f Euclidean space is, itself, a direct result of the action of the phonetic alphabet o n the human senses. N o r had he realized that number is an extension o f the physical b o d y of man, an extension of our sense o f t o u c h . T h e " i n f i n i t y o f functional processes," i n t o w h i c h Spengler g l o o m i l y saw traditional number and geo m e t r y dissolving, is, also, the extension o f our central nervous system i n electrical technologies. W e need n o t feel grateful t o apocalyptic writers like Spengler, w h o see our technologies as cosmic visitors f r o m outer space. T h e Spenglers are t r i b a l l y entranced men w h o crave the swoon back i n t o collective u n consciousness and all the intoxication o f number. I n India the idea o f darshan—of the mystical experience o f being i n v e r y large gatherings—stands at the opposite end o f the spectrum f r o m the W e s t e r n idea o f conscious values. T h e most p r i m i t i v e tribes o f Australia and A f r i c a , like the Eskimos o f today, have n o t y e t reached finger-counting, n o r do they have numbers i n series. Instead they have a b i n a r y system of independent numbers f o r one and two, w i t h composite numbers up to six. A f t e r six, t h e y perceive o n l y "heap." L a c k i n g the sense o f series, t h e y w i l l scarcely notice w h e n t w o pins have been re-

Number/III moved f r o m a r o w o f seven. T h e y become aware at once, h o w ever, i f one p i n is missing. Tobias Dantzig, w h o investigated these matters, points out ( i n Number: The Language of Science) that the p a r i t y or kinesthetic sense o f these people is stronger than their number sense. I t is certainly an indication o f a developing visual stress i n a culture w h e n number appears. A closely i n tegrated tribal culture w i l l n o t easily y i e l d t o the separatist visual and individualistic pressures that lead t o the division o f labor, and then t o such accelerated forms as w r i t i n g and money. O n the other hand, Western man, were he determined t o cling t o the f r a g mented and individualist ways that he has derived f r o m the p r i n t e d w o r d i n particular, w o u l d be w e l l advised t o scrap all his electric technology since the telegraph. T h e implosive ( c o m pressional) character o f the electric technology plays the disk or f i l m o f Western man b a c k w a r d , i n t o the heart o f t r i b a l darkness, or i n t o w h a t Joseph Conrad called "the A f r i c a w i t h i n . " T h e instant character o f electric i n f o r m a t i o n movement does n o t enlarge, b u t involves, the f a m i l y o f man i n the cohesive state o f village l i v i n g . I t seems c o n t r a d i c t o r y that the fragmenting and divisive p o w e r o f our analytic W e s t e r n w o r l d should derive f r o m an accentuation of the visual f a c u l t y . T h i s same visual sense is, also, responsible f o r the habit o f seeing all things as continuous and connected. Fragmentation b y means o f visual stress occurs i n that isolation o f moment i n time, or o f aspect i n space, that is b e y o n d the power o f touch, or hearing, or smell, or movement. B y i m posing unvisualizable relationships that are the result o f instant speed, electric technology dethrones the visual sense and restores us t o the dominion o f synesthesia, and the close interinvolvement o f the other senses. Spengler was plunged i n t o a Slough o f Despond b y w h a t he saw as the Western retreat f r o m N u m e r i c a l Magnitude i n t o a Faery L a n d o f Functions and abstract relations. " T h e most valuable t h i n g i n classical mathematic," he w r o t e , "is its proposit i o n that number is the essence o f all things perceptible to the senses. D e f i n i n g number as a measure, i t contains the w h o l e w o r l d -

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feeling o f a soul passionately devoted t o the 'here' and 'now.* Measurement i n this sense means the measurement o f something near and corporeal." T h e ecstatic tribal man emanates f r o m every page o f Spengler. I t never occurred t o h i m that the ratio among corporeal things could never be less than rational. T h a t is t o say, rationality or consciousness is itself a ratio or p r o p o r t i o n among the sensuous components o f experience, and is n o t something added t o such sense experience. Subrational beings have no means o f achieving such a ratio or p r o p o r t i o n i n their sense lives b u t are w i r e d f o r fixed wave lengths, as i t were, having i n f a l l i b i l i t y i n their o w n area o f experience. Consciousness, complex and subtle, can be impaired or ended b y a mere stepping-up or d i m m i n g - d o w n of any one sense intensity, w h i c h is the procedure i n hypnosis. A n d the intensification of one sense b y a new medium can hypnotize an entire c o m m u n i t y . Thus, w h e n he t h o u g h t he saw modern mathematics and science abandoning visual relations and constructions f o r a nonvisual t h e o r y of relations and functions, Spengler pronounced the demise o f the West. H a d Spengler taken the time t o discover the origins of b o t h number and Euclidean space i n the psychological effects of the phonetic alphabet, The Decline of the West m i g h t never have been w r i t t e n . T h a t w o r k is based o n the assumption that classical man, A p o l l o n i a n man, was n o t the p r o d u c t of a technological bias i n Greek culture (namely, the early impact o f literacy o n a tribal society), b u t rather the result o f a special tremor i n the soul stuff that embosomed the Greek w o r l d . T h i s is a strildng instance of h o w easily men of any one particular culture w i l l panic w h e n some familiar pattern or landmark gets smudged or shifted because o f the indirect pressure of new media. Spengler, as m u c h as H i t l e r , had derived f r o m radio a subconscious mandate t o announce the end of all " r a t i o n a l " or visual values. H e was acting like Pip i n Dickens' Great Expectations. Pip was a poor b o y w h o had a hidden benefactor w h o wanted to raise Pip to the status o f a gentleman. Pip was ready and w i l l i n g u n t i l he f o u n d that his benefactor was an escaped convict. Spengler and H i t l e r and m a n y more o f the would-be "irrationalists" of our c e n t u r y are like singing-telegram

Number/113 delivery boys, w h o are quite innocent o f any understanding o f the medium that prompts the song they sing. So far as Tobias D a n t z i g is concerned i n his Number: The Language of Science, the progress f r o m the tactile fingering o f toes and fingers to "the homogeneous number concept, w h i c h made mathematics possible" is the result o f visual abstraction f r o m the operation of tactile manipulation. W e have b o t h extremes o f this process i n our daily speech. T h e gangster t e r m " t o p u t the finger o n " says that somebody's " n u m b e r " has come u p . A t the extreme of the graph profiles of the statisticians there is the f r a n k l y expressed object of manipulation o f population f o r varieties o f p o w e r purposes. For example, i n any large stockbroker's office there is a modern medicine man k n o w n as " M r . O d d L o t s . " H i s magical f u n c t i o n is t o study the daily purchases and sales of the small buyers on the b i g exchanges. L o n g experience has revealed that these small buyers are w r o n g 80 per cent of the time. A statistical profile of the failure of the little man t o be i n t o u c h enables the b i g operators to be about 80 per cent r i g h t . T h u s f r o m error comes t r u t h ; and f r o m p o v e r t y , riches, thanks t o numbers. T h i s is the m o d e r n magic o f numbers. T h e more p r i m i tive attitude t o w a r d the magical power o f numbers appeared i n the dread o f the English w h e n W i l l i a m the Conqueror numbered them and their chattels i n w h a t the f o l k called the Doomsday Book. T o t u r n again b r i e f l y t o the question of number i n its more l i m i t e d manifestation, Dantzig, having made clear that the idea o f homogeneity had t o come before p r i m i t i v e numbers could be advanced t o the level o f mathematics, points to another literate and visual factor i n the older mathematics. "Correspondence and succession, the t w o principles w h i c h permeate all mathematicsnay, all realms o f exact thought—are w o v e n i n t o the v e r y fabric o f our number system," he observes. So, indeed, are they w o v e n i n t o the v e r y fabric o f W e s t e r n logic and philosophy. W e have already seen h o w the phonetic technology fostered visual cont i n u i t y and individual p o i n t o f v i e w , and h o w these contributed t o the rise o f u n i f o r m Euclidean space. D a n t z i g says that i t is the idea o f correspondence w h i c h gives us cardinal numbers. B o t h o f

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these spatial ideas—lineality and p o i n t o f view—come w i t h w r i t i n g , especially w i t h phonetic w r i t i n g ; b u t neither is necessary i n our n e w mathematics and physics. N o r is w r i t i n g necessary t o an electric technology. O f course, w r i t i n g and conventional arithmetic m a y l o n g continue t o be o f the utmost use t o man, f o r all that. Even Einstein c o u l d n o t face the n e w quantum physics w i t h c o m f o r t . T o o visual a N e w t o n i a n f o r the new task, he said that quanta could n o t be handled mathematically. T h a t is as m u c h as t o say that p o e t r y cannot be p r o p e r l y translated i n t o merely visual f o r m o n the p r i n t e d page. Dantzig develops his points about number b y saying that a literate population soon departs f r o m the abacus and f r o m finger enumeration, t h o u g h arithmetic manuals i n the Renaissance continued t o give elaborate rules f o r calculating on the hands. I t could be true that numbers preceded literacy i n some cultures, b u t so d i d visual stress precede w r i t i n g . For w r i t i n g is o n l y the principal manifestation o f the extension o f o u r visual sense, as the photograph and the movie today may w e l l r e m i n d us. A n d l o n g before literate technology, the b i n a r y factors o f hands and feet sufficed t o launch man o n the path o f c o u n t i n g . Indeed, the mathematical Leibniz saw i n the mystic elegance o f the b i n a r y system of zero and 1 the image o f Creation. T h e u n i t y o f the Supreme Being operating i n the v o i d b y b i n a r y f u n c t i o n w o u l d , he felt, suffice t o make all beings f r o m the v o i d . Dantzig reminds us also that i n the age o f manuscript there was a chaotic v a r i e t y o f signs f o r numerals, and that they d i d n o t assume a stable f o r m u n t i l p r i n t i n g . A l t h o u g h this was one o f the least o f the cultural effects o f p r i n t i n g , i t should serve t o recall that one o f the b i g factors i n the Greek adoption of the letters o f the phonetic alphabet was the prestige and currency o f the number system o f the Phoenician traders. T h e Romans got the Phoenician letters f r o m the Greeks b u t retained a number system that was m u c h more ancient. W a y n e and Shuster, the comedian team, never fail t o get a good laugh w h e n they line up a g r o u p o f ancient Roman cops i n togas and have them number themselves f r o m l e f t t o r i g h t , u t t e r i n g Roman numerals.

Number/115 T h i s joke demonstrates h o w the pressure o f numbers caused men t o seek ever more streamlined methods o f numeration. Before the advant o f ordinal, successive, or positional numbers, rulers had t o count large bodies o f soldiery b y displacement methods. Sometimes they were herded b y groups i n t o spaces of approximately k n o w n area. T h e m e t h o d of having them march i n file and o f d r o p p i n g pebbles i n t o containers was another method n o t u n related t o the abacus and the c o u n t i n g board. Eventually the m e t h o d o f the c o u n t i n g board gave rise t o the great discovery o f the principle o f position i n the early centuries o f our era. B y simply p u t t i n g 3 and 4 and 2 i n position o n the board, one after another, i t was possible t o step u p the speed and potential o f calculation fantastically. T h e discovery o f calculation b y positional numbers rather than b y merely additive numbers led, also, t o the discovery o f zero. M e r e positions f o r 3 and 2 o n the board created ambiguities about whether the number was 32 or 302. T h e need was t o have a sign f o r the gaps between numbers. I t was n o t t i l l the thirteenth century that sifr, the A r a b w o r d f o r " g a p " o r " e m p t y , " was Latinized and added t o our culture as " c i p h e r " (ziphirum) and finally became the Italian zero. Zero really meant a positional gap. I t d i d n o t acquire the indispensable q u a l i t y o f " i n f i n i t y " u n t i l the rise o f perspective and "vanishing p o i n t " i n Renaissance painting. T h e n e w visual space of Renaissance painting affected number as m u c h as lineal w a i t i n g had done centuries earlier. A m a i n fact about numbers has n o w been reached, w i t h the l i n k between the medieval positional zero and the Renaissance vanishing point. T h a t b o t h vanishing p o i n t and i n f i n i t y were u n k n o w n i n the Greek and R o m a n cultures can be explained as b y products o f literacy. I t was n o t u n t i l p r i n t i n g extended the visual f a c u l t y i n t o v e r y h i g h precision, u n i f o r m i t y , and intensity o f special order that the other senses could be restrained or depressed sufficiently t o create the n e w awareness o f i n f i n i t y . A s one aspect o f perspective and p r i n t i n g , mathematical o r numerical i n f i n i t y serves as an instance o f h o w o u r various physical extensions or media act u p o n one another t h r o u g h the agency o f our o w n

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senses. I t is i n this mode that man appears as the reproductive organ o f the technological w o r l d , a fact that Samuel Butler bizarrely announced i n Ereivhon. T h e effect o f any k i n d o f technology engenders a n e w equil i b r i u m i n us that brings quite n e w technologies t o b i r t h , as w e have just seen i n the interplay o f number (the tactile and quantitative f o r m ) , and the more abstract forms o f w r i t t e n or visual culture. P r i n t technology transformed the medieval zero into the Renaissance i n f i n i t y , n o t o n l y b y convergence—perspective and vanishing point—but b y b r i n g i n g i n t o play f o r the first time i n human history the factor of exact repeatability. P r i n t gave t o m e n the concept o f indefinite repetition so necessary to the mathematical concept o f i n f i n i t y . T h e same Gutenberg fact o f u n i f o r m , continuous, and indefi n i t e l y repeatable bits inspired also the related concept of the infinitesimal calculus, b y w h i c h i t became possible t o translate any k i n d o f t r i c k y space i n t o the straight, the flat, the u n i f o r m , and the " r a t i o n a l . " T h i s concept o f i n f i n i t y was n o t imposed u p o n us b y logic. I t was the g i f t o f Gutenberg. So, also, later on, was the industrial assembly line. T h e power t o translate k n o w l edge i n t o mechanical p r o d u c t i o n b y the breaking u p o f any process i n t o fragmented aspects t o be placed i n a lineal sequence o f movable, y e t u n i f o r m , parts was the f o r m a l essence o f the p r i n t i n g press. T h i s amazing technique o f spatial analysis duplicating itself at once, b y a k i n d o f echo, invaded the w o r l d o f number and touch. Here, then, is merely one familiar, i f unrecognized, instance o f the p o w e r o f one m e d i u m t o translate itself i n t o another medium. Since all media are extensions of our o w n bodies and senses, and since w e habitually translate one sense i n t o another i n our o w n experience, i t need n o t surprise us that o u r extended senses o r technologies should repeat the process o f translation and assimilation o f one f o r m i n t o another. T h i s process m a y w e l l be inseparable f r o m the character o f t o u c h , and f r o m the abrasively interfaced action o f surfaces, whether i n chemistry or crowds or technologies. T h e mysterious need o f crowds t o g r o w and t o reach out, equally characteristic o f large accumulations of

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wealth, can be understood i f money and numbers are, indeed, technologies that extend the p o w e r of t o u c h and the grasp of the hand. For numbers, whether o f people or o f digits, and units o f money w o u l d seem t o possess the same factual magic f o r seizing and incorporating. T h e Greeks ran head-on i n t o the p r o b l e m o f translating their o w n new media w h e n t h e y tried t o apply rational arithmetic t o a p r o b l e m i n geometry. U p arose the specter o f Achilles and the tortoise. These attempts resulted i n the first crisis i n the history o f o u r Western mathematics. Such a crisis concerned the problems o f determining the diagonal o f a square and the circumference of a circle: a clear case of number, the tactile sense, t r y i n g t o cope w i t h visual and pictorial space b y reduction o f the visual space t o itself. F o r the Renaissance, i t was the infinitesimal calculus that enabled arithmetic t o take over mechanics, physics, and geometry. T h e idea of an infinite b u t continuous and u n i f o r m process, so basic t o the Gutenberg technology of movable types, gave rise t o the calculus. Banish the infinite process and mathematics, pure and applied, is reduced t o the state k n o w n t o the pre-Pythagoreans. T h i s is t o say, banish the n e w medium o f p r i n t w i t h its fragmented technology of u n i f o r m , lineal repeatability, and modern mathematics disappears. A p p l y , however, this infinite u n i f o r m process t o finding the length of an arc, and all that need be done is to inscribe i n the arc a sequence o f rectilinear contours o f an increasing number o f sides. W h e n these contours approach a l i m i t , the length of the arc becomes the l i m i t o f this sequence. T h e older m e t h o d o f determining volumes b y l i q u i d displacement is thus translated into abstract visual terms b y calculus. T h e principles regarding the concept o f length apply also t o notions o f areas, volumes, masses, moments, pressures, forces, stresses and strains, velocities and accelerations. T h e miracle-maker, the sheer f u n c t i o n o f the infinitely f r a g mented and repeatable, became the means o f making visually flat, straight, and u n i f o r m all that was nonvisual: the skew, the curved, and the b u m p y . I n the same w a y , the phonetic alphabet had, centuries before, invaded the discontinuous cultures of the bar-

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barians, and translated their sinuosities and obtusities into the uniformities of the visual culture o f the W e s t e r n w o r l d . I t is this u n i f o r m , connected, and visual order that w e still use as the n o r m of " r a t i o n a l " l i v i n g . I n our electric age of instant and n o n visual forms of interrelation, therefore, w e f i n d ourselves at a loss t o define the " r a t i o n a l , " i f o n l y because w e never noticed whence i t came i n the first place.

12 Clothing Our Extended Skin

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Economists have estimated that an unclad society eats 40 per cent more than one i n W e s t e r n attire. C l o t h i n g as an extension o f our skin helps t o store and t o channel energy, so that i f the Westerner needs less f o o d , he m a y also demand more sex. Y e t neither c l o t h i n g n o r sex can be understood as separate isolated factors, and m a n y sociologists have noted that sex can become a compensation f o r c r o w d e d l i v i n g . Privacy, like individualism, is u n k n o w n i n t r i b a l societies, a fact that Westerners need t o keep i n m i n d w h e n estimating the attractions o f our w a y o f life t o nonliterate peoples. Clothing, as an extension o f the skin, can be seen b o t h as a heat-control mechanism and as a means o f defining the self socially. I n these respects, c l o t h i n g and housing are near t w i n s , t h o u g h c l o t h i n g is b o t h nearer and elder; f o r housing extends the inner heat-control mechanisms o f our organism, w h i l e c l o t h i n g is a m o r e

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direct extension o f the outer surface o f the b o d y . T o d a y E u r o peans have begun t o dress f o r the eye, American-style, just at the moment w h e n Americans have begun t o abandon their traditional visual style. T h e media analyst k n o w s w h y these opposite styles suddenly transfer their locations. T h e European, since the Second W a r , has begun t o stress visual values; his economy, n o t coincidentally, n o w supports a large amount of u n i f o r m consumer goods. Americans, o n the other hand, have begun t o rebel against u n i f o r m consumer values f o r the first time. I n cars, i n clothes, i n paperback books; i n beards, babies, and beehive hairdos, the American has declared f o r stress o n t o u c h , o n participation, i n volvement, and sculptural values. A m e r i c a , once the land o f an abstractly visual order, is p r o f o u n d l y " i n t o u c h " again w i t h European traditions o f f o o d and l i f e and art. W h a t was an avantgarde p r o g r a m f o r the 1920 expatriates is n o w the teenagers' norm. T h e Europeans, however, underwent a sort o f consumer revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. W h e n industrialism was a novelty, i t became fashionable among the upper classes to abandon r i c h , c o u r t l y attire i n favor o f simpler materials. T h a t was the time w h e n men first donned the trousers o f the c o m m o n f o o t soldier ( o r pioneer, the original French usage), b u t i t was done at that time as a k i n d o f brash gesture o f social "integrat i o n . " U p u n t i l then, the feudal system had inclined the upper classes t o dress as they spoke, i n a c o u r t l y style quite removed f r o m that o f o r d i n a r y people. Dress and speech were accorded a degree of splendor and richness o f texture that universal literacy and mass p r o d u c t i o n were eventually t o eliminate completely. T h e sewing machine, f o r example, created the l o n g straight line i n clothes, as m u c h as the l i n o t y p e flattened the human vocal style. A recent ad f o r C - E - I - R Computer Services p i c t u r e d a plain c o t t o n dress and the headline: " W h y does M r s . ' K ' dress that way?"—referring t o the w i f e o f N i k i t a Khrushchev. Some o f the c o p y of this v e r y ingenious ad continued: " I t is an i c o n . T o its o w n underprivileged population and t o the u n c o m m i t t e d of the East and South, i t says: W e are t h r i f - t y , simple, hon-est; peace-

Clothing/111 f u l , home-y, go-odV T o the free nations o f the W e s t i t says: ' W e will bury y o u . ' " T h i s is precisely the message that the n e w simple c l o t h i n g o f our forefathers had f o r the feudal classes at the time of the French Revolution. C l o t h i n g was then a nonverbal manifesto of political upset. T o d a y i n America there is a revolutionary attitude expressed as m u c h i n our attire as i n our patios and small cars. F o r a decade and more, women's dress and hair styles have abandoned visual f o r iconic—or sculptural and tactual—stress. L i k e toreador pants and gaiter stockings, the beehive hairdo is also iconic and sensuously inclusive, rather than abstractly visual. I n a w o r d , the American w o m a n f o r the first time presents herself as a person t o be touched and handled, n o t just t o be looked at. W h i l e the Russians are g r o p i n g vaguely t o w a r d visual consumer values, N o r t h Americans are f r o l i c k i n g amidst n e w l y discovered tactile, sculptural spaces i n cars, clothes, and housing. For this reason, i t is relatively easy f o r us n o w t o recognize c l o t h i n g as an extension o f the skin. I n the age o f the b i k i n i and o f skin-diving, w e begin t o understand " t h e castle o f our s k i n " as a space and w o r l d o f its o w n . Gone are the thrills of strip-tease. N u d i t y c o u l d be naughty excitement o n l y f o r a visual culture that had divorced itself f r o m the audile-tactile values o f less abstract societies. A s late as 1930, four-letter w o r d s made visual o n the p r i n t e d page seemed portentous. W o r d s that most people used every hour o f the day became as f r a n t i c as n u d i t y , w h e n p r i n t e d . M o s t " f o u r letter w o r d s " are heavy w i t h tactile-involving stress. F o r this reason they seem earthy and vigorous t o visual man. So i t is w i t h n u d i t y . T o backward cultures still embedded i n the f u l l gamut of sense-life, n o t y e t abstracted b y literacy and industrial visual order, n u d i t y is merely pathetic. T h e Kinsey Report o n the sex life o f the male expressed bafflement that peasants and b a c k w a r d peoples d i d n o t relish marital or boudoir n u d i t y . Khrushchev d i d n o t enjoy the can-can dance provided f o r his entertainment i n H o l l y w o o d . N a t u r a l l y not. T h a t sort o f mime o f sense i n v o l v e ment is meaningful o n l y t o long-literate societies. Backward peoples approach n u d i t y , i f at all, w i t h the attitude w e have come

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t o expect f r o m our painters and sculptors—the attitude made u p o f all the senses at once. T o a person using the w h o l e sensorium. n u d i t y is the richest possible expression o f structural f o r m . But t o the h i g h l y visual and lopsided sensibility of industrial societies, the sudden c o n f r o n t a t i o n w i t h tactile flesh is heady music, indeed. T h e r e is a movement t o w a r d a n e w equilibrium today, as w e become aware o f the preference f o r coarse, heavy textures and sculptural shapes i n dress. T h e r e is, also, the ritualistic exposure o f the b o d y indoors and out-of-doors. Psychologists have l o n g taught us that m u c h o f our hearing takes place t h r o u g h the skin itself. A f t e r centuries o f being f u l l y clad and o f being contained i n u n i f o r m visual space, the electric age ushers us i n t o a w o r l d i n w h i c h w e live and breathe and listen w i t h the entire epidermis. O f course, there is m u c h zest o f n o v e l t y i n this cult, and the eventual equilibrium among the senses w i l l slough off a good deal of the n e w ritual, b o t h i n clothing and i n housing. Meantime, i n b o t h n e w attire and n e w dwellings, our unified sensibility cavorts amidst a w i d e range of awareness o f materials and colors w h i c h makes ours one o f the greatest ages o f music, p o e t r y , painting, and architecture alike.

13 Housing New Look and New Outlook

I f c l o t h i n g is an extension o f our private skins t o store and channel our o w n heat and energy, housing is a collective means o f achieving the same end f o r the f a m i l y or the g r o u p . H o u s i n g as shelter is an extension o f o u r b o d i l y heat-control mechanisms—a collective skin or garment. Cities are an even f u r t h e r extension o f b o d i l y organs t o accommodate the needs o f large groups. M a n y readers are familiar w i t h the w a y i n w h i c h James Joyce o r ganized Ulysses b y assigning the various c i t y forms of walls, streets, civic buildings, and media t o the various b o d i l y organs. Such a parallel between the c i t y and the human b o d y enabled Joyce t o establish a f u r t h e r parallel between ancient Ithaca and m o d e r n D u b l i n , creating a sense o f human u n i t y i n depth, transcending history. Baudelaire originally intended t o call his Fleurs du Mal> Les Limbes, having i n m i n d the c i t y as corporate extensions o f

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our physical organs. O u r letting-go o f ourselves, self-alienations, as i t were, i n order t o a m p l i f y or increase the p o w e r o f various functions, Baudelaire considered t o be flowers o f g r o w t h s of evil. T h e c i t y as amplification o f human lusts and sensual striving had f o r h i m an entire organic and psychic u n i t y . Literate man, civilized man, tends t o restrict and enclose space and t o separate functions, whereas tribal man had freely extended the f o r m o f his b o d y t o include the universe. A c t i n g as an organ o f the cosmos, tribal man accepted his b o d i l y f u n c tions as modes o f participation i n the divine energies. T h e human b o d y i n Indian religious t h o u g h t was r i t u a l l y related to the cosmic image, and this i n t u r n was assimilated i n t o the f o r m o f house. H o u s i n g was an image o f b o t h the b o d y and the universe f o r tribal and nonliterate societies. T h e b u i l d i n g o f the house w i t h its hearth as fire-altar was r i t u a l l y associated w i t h the act of creation. T h i s same r i t u a l was even more deeply embedded i n the b u i l d i n g o f the ancient cities, their shape and process having been deliberately modeled as an act o f divine praise. T h e c i t y and the home i n the tribal w o r l d (as i n China and India t o d a y ) can be accepted as iconic embodiments o f the word, the divine mythos, the universal aspiration. Even i n our present electric age, many people yearn f o r this inclusive strategy o f acquiring significance f o r their o w n private and isolated beings. Literate man, once having accepted an analytic technology o f fragmentation, is n o t nearly so accessible t o cosmic patterns as tribal man. H e prefers separateness and compartmented spaces, rather than the open cosmos. H e becomes less inclined to accept his b o d y as a model of the universe, or t o see his house—or any other o f the media of communication, f o r that matter—as a ritual extension of his b o d y . Once men have adopted the visual dynamic o f the phonetic alphabet, t h e y begin to lose the tribal man's obsession w i t h cosmic order and ritual as recurrent i n the physical organs and their social extension. Indifference to the cosmic, however, fosters intense concentration o n minute segments and specialist tasks, w h i c h is the unique strength o f Western man. For the specialist is one w h o never makes small mistakes while m o v i n g t o w a r d the grand fallacy.

Housing/125 iMen live i n r o u n d houses u n t i l they become sedentary and specialized i n their w o r k organization. Anthropologists have o f t e n noted this change f r o m r o u n d to square w i t h o u t k n o w i n g its cause. T h e media analyst can help the anthropologist i n this matter, although the explanation w i l l not be obvious to people o f visual culture. T h e visual man, likewise, cannot see m u c h difference between the m o t i o n picture and T V , or between a Corvair and a Volkswagen, f o r this difference is not between t w o visual spaces, but between tactile and visual ones. A tent or a w i g w a m is n o t an enclosed or visual space. N e i t h e r is a cave nor a hole i n the g r o u n d . These kinds of space—the tent, the w i g w a m , the igloo, the c a v e are n o t "enclosed" i n the visual sense because they f o l l o w dynamic lines of force, like a triangle. W h e n enclosed, or translated i n t o visual space, architecture tends to lose its tactile kinetic pressure. A square is the enclosure of a visual space; that is, i t consists of space properties abstracted f r o m manifest tensions. A triangle f o l l o w s lines o f force, this being the most economical w a y o f anchoring a vertical object. A square moves beyond such kinetic pressures t o enclose visual space relations, w h i l e depending u p o n diagonal anchors. T h i s separation of the visual f r o m direct tactile and kinetic pressure, and its translation i n t o new dwelling spaces, occurs o n l y w h e n men have learned t o practice specialization o f their senses, and fragmentation o f their w o r k skills. T h e square r o o m or house speaks the language o f the sedentary specialist, w h i l e the r o u n d h u t or igloo, like the conical w i g w a m , tells of the integral nomadic ways o f food-gathering communities. T h i s entire discussion is offered at considerable risk of misapprehension because these are, spatially, h i g h l y technical matters. Nevertheless, w h e n such spaces are understood, t h e y offer the key t o a great m a n y enigmas, past and present. T h e y explain the change f r o m circular-dome architecture to gothic forms, a change occasioned b y alteration i n the ratio or p r o p o r t i o n of the sense lives i n the members of a society. Such a shift occurs w i t h the extension of the b o d y i n n e w social technology and invention. A n e w extension sets u p a n e w equilibrium among all of the senses and faculties leading, as w e say, to a " n e w outlook"—new attitudes and preferences i n many areas.

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I n the simplest terms, as already noted, housing is an effort t o extend the body's heat-control mechanism. C l o t h i n g tackles the problem more d i r e c t l y b u t less fundamentally, and privately rather than socially. B o t h c l o t h i n g and housing store w a r m t h and energy and make these readily accessible f o r the execution o f many tasks otherwise impossible. I n m a k i n g heat and energy accessible socially, t o the f a m i l y o r the g r o u p , housing fosters n e w skills and n e w learning, p e r f o r m i n g the basic functions o f all other media. H e a t c o n t r o l is the k e y factor i n housing, as w e l l as i n c l o t h i n g . T h e Eskimo's d w e l l i n g is a g o o d example. T h e Eskimo can go f o r days w i t h o u t f o o d at 50 degrees below zero. T h e unclad native, deprived o f nourishment, dies i n a f e w hours. I t may surprise many t o learn that the p r i m i t i v e shape o f the igloo is, nonetheless, traceable t o the primus stove. Eskimos have lived f o r ages i n r o u n d stone houses, and, f o r the most part, still do. T h e igloo, made o f snow blocks, is a f a i r l y recent development i n the life of this stone-age people. T o live i n such structures became possible w i t h the c o m i n g of the w h i t e man and his portable stove. T h e igloo is an ephemeral shelter, devised f o r temporary use b y trappers. T h e Eskimo became a trapper o n l y after he had made contact w i t h the w h i t e m a n ; u p u n t i l then he had been simply a food-gatherer. L e t the igloo serve as an example o f the w a y i n w h i c h a n e w pattern is i n t r o d u c e d i n t o an ancient w a y o f life b y the intensification o f a single factor—in this instance, artificial heat. I n the same w a y , the intensification o f a single factor i n our complex lives leads naturally t o a n e w balance among our technologically extended faculties, resulting i n a n e w l o o k and a new " o u t l o o k " w i t h new motivations and inventions. I n the t w e n t i e t h century w e are familiar w i t h the changes i n housing and architecture that are the result o f electric energy made available t o elevators. T h e same energy devoted t o l i g h t i n g has altered our l i v i n g and w o r k i n g spaces even more radically. Electric l i g h t abolished the divisions o f n i g h t and day, o f inner and outer, and o f the subterranean and the terrestrial. I t altered every consideration of space f o r w o r k and p r o d u c t i o n as m u c h as the other electric media had altered the space-time experience o f

Housing/'127 society. A l l this is reasonably familiar. Less familiar is the architectural r e v o l u t i o n made possible b y improvements i n heating centuries ago. W i t h the m i n i n g o f coal o n a large scale i n the Renaissance, inhabitants i n the colder climates discovered great n e w resources o f personal energy. N e w means o f heating perm i t t e d the manufacture o f glass and the enlargement o f l i v i n g quarters and the raising o f ceilings. T h e Burgher house o f the Renaissance became at once bedroom, kitchen, workshop, and sale outlet. Once housing is seen as g r o u p ( o r corporate) c l o t h i n g and heat c o n t r o l , the n e w means o f heating can be understood as causing change i n spatial f o r m . L i g h t i n g , however, is almost as decisive as heating i n causing these changes i n architectural and c i t y spaces. T h a t is the reason w h y the story o f glass is so closely related t o the history o f housing. T h e story of the m i r r o r is a main chapter i n the history o f dress and manners and the sense o f the self. Recently an imaginative school principal i n a slum area p r o vided each student i n the school w i t h a photograph o f himself. T h e classrooms o f the school were abundantly supplied w i t h large mirrors. T h e result was an astounding increase i n the learning rate. T h e slum child has o r d i n a r i l y v e r y little visual orientation. H e does n o t see himself as becoming something. H e does n o t envisage distant goals and objectives. H e is deeply involved i n his o w n w o r l d f r o m day t o day, and can establish no beachhead i n the h i g h l y specialized sense life o f visual man. T h e p l i g h t o f the slum child, via the T V image, is increasingly extended t o the entire population. C l o t h i n g and housing, as extensions o f skin and heat-control mechanisms, are media o f communication, first o f all, i n the sense that t h e y shape and rearrange the patterns o f human association and c o m m u n i t y . V a r i e d techniques o f l i g h t i n g and heating w o u l d seem o n l y t o give n e w flexibility and scope t o w h a t is the basic principle o f these media o f c l o t h i n g and housing; namely, their extension o f our b o d i l y heat-control mechanisms i n a w a y that enables us t o attain some degree of equilibrium i n a changing environment.

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M o d e r n engineering provides means o f housing that range f r o m the space capsule t o walls created b y air jets. Some firms n o w specialize i n p r o v i d i n g large buildings w i t h inside walls and floors that can be moved at w i l l . Such f l e x i b i l i t y naturally tends t o w a r d the organic. H u m a n sensitivity seems once more to be attuned to the universal currents that made o f tribal man a cosmic skin-diver. I t is n o t o n l y the Ulysses o f James Joyce that testifies to this trend. Recent studies of the G o t h i c churches have stressed the organic aims o f their builders. T h e saints t o o k the b o d y seriously as the symbolic vesture of the spirit, and they regarded the C h u r c h as a second b o d y , v i e w i n g its every detail w i t h great completeness. Before James Joyce provided his detailed image o f the metropolis as a second b o d y , Baudelaire had provided a similar "dialogue" between the parts o f the b o d y extended t o f o r m the metropolis, i n his Fleurs du Mai. Electric l i g h t i n g has b r o u g h t i n t o the cultural complex o f the extensions o f man i n housing and c i t y , an organic flexibility u n k n o w n t o any other age. I f color photography has created "museums w i t h o u t walls," h o w m u c h more has electric l i g h t i n g created space w i t h o u t walls, and day w i t h o u t night. W h e t h e r i n the n i g h t c i t y , the n i g h t h i g h w a y , or the n i g h t ball game, sketchi n g and w r i t i n g w i t h l i g h t have moved f r o m the domain of the pictorial photograph t o the live, dynamic spaces created b y o u t of-door lighting. N o t many ages ago, glass w i n d o w s were u n k n o w n luxuries. W i t h l i g h t c o n t r o l b y glass came also a means o f c o n t r o l l i n g the regularity o f domestic routine, and steady application t o crafts and trade w i t h o u t regard to cold o r rain. T h e w o r l d was p u t i n a frame. W i t h electric l i g h t n o t o n l y can w e carry o u t the most precise operations w i t h no regard f o r time or place or climate, b u t w e can photograph the submicroscopic as easily as w e can enter the subterranean w o r l d o f the mine and o f the cave-painters. L i g h t i n g as an extension o f our powers affords the clearestcut example o f h o w such extensions alter our perceptions. I f people are inclined to doubt whether the wheel or t y p o g r a p h y or the plane con Id change our habits o f sense perception, their

Housing/'129 doubts end w i t h electric lighting. I n this domain, the medium is the message, and w h e n the l i g h t is on there is a w o r l d of sense that disappears w h e n the l i g h t is off. "Painting w i t h l i g h t " is jargon f r o m the w o r l d o f stageelectricity. T h e uses o f l i g h t i n the w o r l d o f m o t i o n , whether i n the motorcar or the movie or the microscope, are as diverse as the uses o f electricity i n the w o r l d o f power. L i g h t is information w i t h o u t "content," m u c h as the missile is a vehicle w i t h o u t the additions o f wheel or h i g h w a y . As the missile is a self-contained transportation system that consumes n o t o n l y its fuel b u t its engine, so l i g h t is a self-contained communication system i n w h i c h the medium is the message. T h e recent development o f the laser r a y has introduced n e w possibilities f o r light. T h e laser r a y is an amplification of l i g h t b y intensified radiation. Concentration of radiant energy has made available some new properties i n light. T h e laser ray—by t h i c k ening l i g h t , as i t were—enables i t t o be modulated t o carry i n f o r m a t i o n as do radio waves. B u t because of its greater intensity, a single laser beam can c a r r y as m u c h i n f o r m a t i o n as all the c o m bined radio and T V channels i n the U n i t e d States. Such beams are n o t w i t h i n the range o f vision, and m a y w e l l have a m i l i t a r y f u t u r e as a lethal agents. F r o m the air at n i g h t , the seeming chaos of the urban area manifests itself as a delicate embroidery o n a dark velvet g r o u n d . G y o r g y Kepes has developed these aerial effects of the c i t y at n i g h t as a new art f o r m o f "landscape b y l i g h t t h r o u g h " rather than " l i g h t o n . " H i s n e w electric landscapes have complete c o n g r u i t y w i t h the T V image, w h i c h also exists b y l i g h t through rather than b y l i g h t on. T h e French painter André G i r a r d began painting d i r e c t l y on film before the photographic movies became popular. I n that early phase i t was easy t o speculate about " p a i n t i n g w i t h l i g h t " and about i n t r o d u c i n g movement i n t o the art o f painting. Said Girard: I would not be surprised if, fifty years f r o m now, almost no one would pay attention to paintings whose subjects remain still i n their always too-narrow frames.

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T h e coming o f T V inspired h i m anew: Once I saw suddenly, i n a control room, the sensitive eye of the camera presenting to me, one after another, the faces, the landscapes, the expressions of a big painting of mine i n an order which I had never thought of. I had the feeling of a composer listening to one of his operas, all scenes mixed up i n an order different f r o m the one he wrote. I t was like seeing a building f r o m a fast elevator that showed you the roof before the basement, and made quick stops at some floors but not others. Since that phase, G i r a r d has w o r k e d out new techniques of c o n t r o l f o r painting w i t h l i g h t i n association w i t h CBS and N B C technicians. T h e relevance o f his w o r k f o r housing is that i t enables us t o conceive o f t o t a l l y n e w possibilities f o r architectural and artistic modulation o f space. Painting w i t h l i g h t is a k i n d o f housing-without-walls. T h e same electric technology, extended t o the job of p r o v i d i n g global thermostatic controls, points t o the obsolescence o f housing as an extension o f the heat-control mechanisms of the b o d y . I t is equally conceivable that the electric extension o f the process of collective consciousness, i n making consciousness-without-walls, m i g h t render language walls obsolescent. Languages are stuttering extensions o f our five senses, i n v a r y i n g ratios and wavelengths. A n immediate simulation o f consciousness w o u l d by-pass speech i n a k i n d o f massive extrasensory perception, just as global thermostats could by-pass those extensions of skin and b o d y that w e call houses. Such an extension o f the process of consciousness b y electric simulation m a y easily occur i n the 1960s.

14 Money The Poor Maris Credit Card

Central t o m o d e r n psychoanalytical theo r y is the relation between the money complex and the human b o d y . Some analysts derive money f r o m the infantile i m pulse t o play w i t h feces. Ferenczi, i n particular, calls money " n o t h i n g other than odorless dehydrated filth that has been made t o shine." Ferenczi, i n his concept o f money, is elaborating Freud's concept o f "Character and A n a l E r o t i s m . " A l t h o u g h this idea o f l i n k i n g " f i l t h y l u c r e " w i t h the anal has continued i n the main lines o f psychoanalysis, i t does n o t correspond sufficiently t o the nature and f u n c t i o n of money i n society t o provide a theme f o r the present chapter. M o n e y began i n nonliterate cultures as a c o m m o d i t y , such as whales' teeth o n F i j i ; or rats on Easter Island, w h i c h later were considered a delicacy, were valued as a l u x u r y , and thus became a means o f mediation or barter. W h e n the Spaniards were besieging L e y den i n 1574, leather

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money was issued, b u t as hardship increased the population boiled and ate the new currency. I n literate cultures, circumstances may reintroduce c o m m o d i t y money. T h e D u t c h , after the German occupation o f W o r l d W a r I I , were avid f o r tobacco. Since the supply was small, objects o f high value such as jewels, precision instruments, and even houses were sold f o r small quantities o f cigarettes. The Reader's Digest recorded an episode f r o m the early occupation of Europe i n 1945, describing h o w an unopened pack o f cigarettes served as currency, passing f r o m hand t o hand, translating the skill o f one w o r k e r into the skill o f another as l o n g as no one broke the seal. M o n e y always retains something of its c o m m o d i t y and c o m m u n i t y character. I n the beginning, its f u n c t i o n o f extending the grasp o f men f r o m their nearest staples and commodities t o more distant ones is v e r y slight. Increased m o b i l i t y o f grasp and trading is small at first. So i t is w i t h the emergence o f language i n the child. I n the first months grasping is reflexive, and the p o w e r t o make v o l u n t a r y release comes o n l y t o w a r d the end o f the first year. Speech comes w i t h the development o f the power to let go o f objects. I t gives the p o w e r of detachment f r o m the environment that is also the power o f great m o b i l i t y i n knowledge of the environment. So i t is w i t h the g r o w t h of the idea o f money as currency rather than c o m m o d i t y . C u r r e n c y is a w a y o f letting go of the immediate staples and commodities that at first serve as money, i n order t o extend trading t o the w h o l e social complex. T r a d i n g b y currency is based o n the principle o f grasping and letting go i n an oscillating cycle. T h e one hand retains the article w i t h w h i c h i t tempts the other p a r t y . T h e other hand is extended i n demand t o w a r d the object w h i c h is desired i n exchange. T h e first hand lets go as soon as the second object is touched, somew h a t i n the manner of a trapeze artist exchanging one bar f o r another. I n fact, Elias Canetti i n Crowds and Power argues that the trader is involved i n one o f the most ancient o f all pastimes, namely that o f c l i m b i n g trees and swinging f r o m l i m b t o l i m b . T h e p r i m i t i v e grasping, calculating, and t i m i n g o f the greater arboreal apes he sees as a translation i n t o financial terms of one

Money/133 o f the oldest movement patterns. Just as the hand among the branches o f the trees learned a pattern o f grasping that was quite removed f r o m the m o v i n g o f f o o d t o m o u t h , so the trader and the financier have developed enthralling abstract activities that are extensions o f t h e avid c l i m b i n g and m o b i l i t y o f the greater apes. L i k e any other m e d i u m , i t is a staple, a natural resource. A s an o u t w a r d and visible f o r m o f the urge t o change and t o exchange, i t is a corporate image, depending o n society f o r its institutional status. A p a r t f r o m communal participation, money is meaningless, as Robinson Crusoe discovered w h e n he f o u n d the coins i n the w r e c k e d ship: I smiled to myself at the sight of this money. " O d r u g ! " said I aloud, " W h a t art thou good for? T h o u art not w o r t h to me—no, not the taking off the ground: one of those knives is w o r t h all this heap: I have no manner of use for thee; e'en remain where thou art and, go to the bottom, as a creature whose life is not w o r t h saving." However, upon second thoughts, I took i t away; and wrapping i t all i n a piece of canvas, I began to think of making another raft . . . Primitive c o m m o d i t y money, like the magical w o r d s o f n o n literate society, can be a storehouse o f power, and has o f t e n become the occasion o f feverish economic a c t i v i t y . T h e natives o f the South Seas, w h e n they are so engaged, seek no economic advantage. Furious application t o p r o d u c t i o n m a y be f o l l o w e d b y deliberate destruction of the products i n order t o achieve moral prestige. Even i n these " p o t l a t c h " cultures, however, t h e effect o f the currencies was t o expedite and t o accelerate human energies i n a w a y that had become universal i n the ancient w o r l d w i t h the technology o f the phonetic alphabet. M o n e y , l i k e w r i t i n g , has the p o w e r t o specialize and t o rechannel human energies and t o separate functions, just as i t translates and reduces one k i n d o f w o r k t o another. Even i n the electronic age i t has lost none o f this power. Potlatch is v e r y widespread, especially where there is ease o f food-gathering o r f o o d - p r o d u c t i o n . F o r example, among the

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N o r t h w e s t coast fishermen, or rice-planters o f Borneo, huge surpluses are produced that have t o be destroyed o r class d i f ferences w o u l d arise that w o u l d destroy the traditional social order. I n Borneo the traveler m a y see tons o f rice exposed t o rains i n rituals, and great art constructions, i n v o l v i n g tremendous efforts, smashed. A t the same time, i n these p r i m i t i v e societies, w h i l e money m a y release frantic energies i n order t o charge a b i t o f copper w i t h magical prestige, i t can b u y v e r y little. R i c h and poor necessarily live i n m u c h the same manner. T o d a y , i n the electronic age, the richest man is reduced to having m u c h the same entertainment, and even the same f o o d and vehicles as the o r d i n a r y man. T h e use of a c o m m o d i t y such as money naturally increases its p r o d u c t i o n . T h e nonspecialist economy o f V i r g i n i a i n the seventeenth century made the elaborate European currencies quite dispensable. H a v i n g little capital, and w i s h i n g t o p u t as little of this capital as possible i n t o the shape o f money, the V i r ginians turned t o c o m m o d i t y money i n some instances. W h e n a c o m m o d i t y like tobacco was legislated i n t o legal tender, i t had the effect o f stimulating the p r o d u c t i o n o f tobacco, just as the establishment o f metallic currencies advanced the m i n i n g o f metals. M o n e y , as a social means o f extending and a m p l i f y i n g w o r k and skill i n an easily accessible and portable f o r m , lost m u c h o f its magical p o w e r w i t h the c o m i n g o f representative money, or paper money. Just as speech lost its magic w i t h w r i t i n g , and f u r t h e r w i t h p r i n t i n g , w h e n p r i n t e d money supplanted gold the compelling aura o f i t disappeared. Samuel Butler i n Erewhon (1872) gave clear indications i n his treatment o f the mysterious prestige conferred b y precious metals. H i s ridicule o f the money medium t o o k the f o r m o f presenting the o l d reverent attitude t o money i n a n e w social context. T h i s n e w k i n d o f abstract, printed money o f the high industrial age, however, simply w o u l d not sustain the o l d attitude: This is the true philanthropy. H e who makes a colossal fortune i n the hosiery trade, and by his energy has succeeded i n reducing the price of woollen goods by the thousandth

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5

part of a penny i n the pound—this man is w o r t h ten professional philanthropists. So strongly are the Erewhonians i m pressed w i t h this, that if a man has made a fortune of over £20,000 a year they exempt him f r o m all taxation, considering him a work of art, and too precious to be meddled w i t h ; they say, " H o w very much he must have done for society before society could have been prevailed upon to give him so much money"; so magnificent an organization overawes them; they regard i t as a thing dropped f r o m heaven. "Money," they say, "is the symbol of duty, i t is the sacrament of having done for mankind that which mankind wanted. Mankind may not be a very good judge, but there is no better." This used to shock me at first, when I remembered that i t had been said on high authority that they who have riches shall enter hardly into the kingdom of heaven; but the influence of Erewhon had made me begin to see things i n a new light, and I could not help thinking that they who have not riches shall enter more hardly still. Earlier i n the book, Butler had r i d i c u l e d the cash-register m o r a l i t y and religion o f an industrialized w o r l d , under the guise o f the "Musical Banks," w i t h clergy i n the role of cashiers. I n the present passage, he perceives money as " t h e sacrament o f having done f o r mankind that w h i c h mankind w a n t e d . " M o n e y , he is saying, is the " o u t w a r d and visible sign o f an i n w a r d and invisible grace." M o n e y as a social m e d i u m or extension o f an inner w i s h and m o t i v e creates social and spiritual values, as happens even i n fashions i n women's dress. A current ad underlines this aspect o f dress as currency (that is, as social sacrament or o u t w a r d and visible sign): " T h e i m p o r t a n t t h i n g i n today's w o r l d o f fashion is t o appear t o be wearing a popular f a b r i c . " C o n f o r m i t y t o this fashion literally gives currency t o a style or fabric, creating a social medium that increases wealth and expression thereby. Does n o t this stress h o w money, or any medium whatever, is constituted and made efficacious? W h e n men become uneasy about such social values achieved b y u n i f o r m i t y and repetition, doing f o r mankind that w h i c h m a n k i n d wants, w e can take i t as a m a r k o f the decline of mechanical technology.

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" M o n e y talks" because money is a metaphor, a transfer, and a bridge. L i k e w o r d s and language, money is a storehouse o f c o m munally achieved w o r k , skill, and experience. M o n e y , however, is also a specialist technology like w r i t i n g ; and as w r i t i n g intensifies the visual aspect o f speech and order, and as the clock visually separates time f r o m space, so money separates w o r k f r o m the other social functions. Even today money is a language f o r translating the w o r k o f the farmer i n t o the w o r k o f the barber, doctor, engineer, or plumber. As a vast social metaphor, bridge, or translator, money—like writing—speeds u p exchange and t i g h t ens the bonds o f interdependence i n any c o m m u n i t y . I t gives great spatial extension and c o n t r o l to political organizations, just as w r i t i n g does, o r the calendar. I t is action at a distance, b o t h i n space and i n time. I n a h i g h l y literate, fragmented society, " T i m e is m o n e y , " and money is the store of other people's time and effort. D u r i n g the M i d d l e Ages the idea of the fisc or "the King's purse" kept the n o t i o n of money i n relation t o language ("the King's English") and t o communication b y travel ("the King's h i g h w a y " ) . Before the advent o f p r i n t i n g , i t was quite natural f o r the means of communication t o be regarded as extensions o f a single b o d y . I n an increasingly literate society, money and the clock assumed a high degree of visual or fragmented stress. I n practice, our W e s t e r n use o f money as store and translator of communal w o r k and skill has depended upon l o n g accustomation t o the w r i t t e n w o r d , and u p o n the p o w e r of the w r i t t e n w o r d to specialize, t o delegate, and to separate functions i n an organization. W h e n w e l o o k at the nature and uses of money i n nonliterate societies, w e can better understand the ways i n w h i c h w r i t i n g helps to establish currencies. U n i f o r m i t y of commodities, c o m bined w i t h a fixed-price system such as w e n o w take f o r granted, does n o t become possible u n t i l p r i n t i n g prepares the ground. " B a c k w a r d " countries take a l o n g time to reach economic "takeo f f " because they do not undergo the extensive processing of p r i n t w i t h its psychological conditioning i n the ways o f u n i f o r m i t y and repeatability. I n general, the W e s t is little aware of the w a y

Money/137 i n w h i c h the w o r l d o f prices and numbering is supported b y the pervasive visual culture o f literacy. Nonliterate societies are quite lacking i n the psychic resources t o create and sustain the enormous structures o f statistical i n f o r m a t i o n that w e call markets and prices. Far easier is the o r ganization of p r o d u c t i o n than is the training o f whole populations i n the habits of translating their wishes and desires statistically, as i t were, b y means o f market mechanisms o f supply and demand, and the visual technology o f prices. I t was o n l y i n the eighteenth century that the W e s t began to accept this f o r m of extension o f its inner life i n the new statistical pattern o f marketing. So bizarre d i d this new mechanism appear to thinkers o f that time that they called i t a "Hedonistic calculus." Prices then seemed t o be c o m parable, i n terms o f feelings and desires, t o the vast w o r l d o f space that had yielded its inequities earlier to the translating p o w e r o f the differential calculus. I n a w o r d , the fragmentation o f the inner life b y prices seemed as mysterious i n the eighteenth cent u r y , as the minute fragmentation of space b y means o f calculus had seemed a century earlier. T h e extreme abstraction and detachment represented b y our p r i c i n g system is quite unthinkable and unusable amidst populations f o r w h o m the exciting drama o f price haggling occurs w i t h every transaction. T o d a y , as the n e w vortices of p o w e r are shaped b y the instant electric interdependence of all men o n this planet, the visual factor i n social organization and i n personal experience recedes, and money begins to be less and less a means of storing or exchanging w o r k and skill. A u t o m a t i o n , w h i c h is electronic, does n o t represent physical w o r k so m u c h as programmed k n o w l edge. A s w o r k is replaced b y the sheer movement of i n f o r m a t i o n , money as a store o f w o r k merges w i t h the informational forms o f credit and credit card. F r o m coin t o paper currency, and f r o m currency t o credit card there is a steady progression t o w a r d commercial exchange as the movement o f i n f o r m a t i o n itself. T h i s trend t o w a r d an inclusive i n f o r m a t i o n is the k i n d o f image r e p resented b y the credit card, and approaches once more the character of tribal money. F o r tribal society, not k n o w i n g the

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specialisms o f job or o f w o r k , does n o t specialize m o n e y either. Its money can be eaten, d r u n k , or w o r n like the n e w space ships that are n o w designed t o be edible. " W o r k , " however, does n o t exist i n a nonliterate w o r l d . T h e p r i m i t i v e hunter or fisherman d i d no w o r k , any m o r e than does the poet, painter, or thinker o f today. W h e r e the w h o l e man is involved there is no w o r k . W o r k begins w i t h the division o f labor and the specialization of functions and tasks i n sedentary, agricult u r a l communities. I n the computer age w e are once more t o t a l l y involved i n our roles. I n the electric age the " j o b o f w o r k " yields t o dedication and commitment, as i n the tribe. I n nonliterate societies money relates itself t o the other organs o f society quite simply. T h e role o f money is enormously i n creased after money begins t o foster specialism and separation of social functions. M o n e y becomes, i n fact, the p r i n c i p a l means o f interrelating the ever more specialist activities o f literate society. T h e fragmenting p o w e r o f the visual sense, as literacy separates i t f r o m the other senses, is a fact more easily identified n o w i n the electronic age. N o w a d a y s , w i t h computers and elect r i c p r o g r a m m i n g , the means o f storing and m o v i n g i n f o r m a t i o n become less and less visual and mechanical, w h i l e increasingly integral and organic. T h e total field created b y the instantaneous electric forms cannot be visualized any more than the velocities of electronic particles can be visualized. T h e instantaneous creates an interplay among time and space and human occupations, f o r w h i c h the older forms of currency exchange become increasingly inadequate. A modern physicist w h o attempted t o employ visual models of perception i n organizing atomic data w o u l d n o t be able t o get anywhere near the nature o f his problems. B o t h time (as measured visually and segmentally) and space (as u n i f o r m , pictorial, and enclosed) disappear i n the electronic age o f instant i n f o r m a t i o n . I n the age o f instant i n f o r m a t i o n man ends his job o f fragmented specializing and assumes the role o f i n f o r m a t i o n gathering. T o d a y information-gathering resumes the inclusive concept o f " c u l t u r e , " exactly as the p r i m i t i v e food-gatherer w o r k e d i n complete equilibrium w i t h his entire environment. O u r q u a r r y n o w , i n this new nomadic and "workless" w o r l d , is k n o w l -

Money/139 edge and insight i n t o the creative processes o f life and society. M e n l e f t the closed w o r l d o f the tribe f o r the "open society," exchanging an ear f o r an eye b y means o f the technology o f w r i t i n g . T h e alphabet i n particular enabled them t o break out o f the charmed circle and resonating magic o f the tribal w o r l d . A similar process o f economic change f r o m the closed to the open society, f r o m mercantilism and the economic protection o f national trade t o the open market ideal o f the free-traders, was accomplished i n more recent times b y means o f the p r i n t e d w o r d , and b y m o v i n g f r o m metallic t o paper currencies. T o d a y , electric technology puts the v e r y concept of m o n e y i n jeopardy, as the n e w dynamics o f human interdependence shift f r o m fragmenting media such as p r i n t i n g t o inclusive or mass media like the telegraph. Since all media are extensions o f ourselves, or translations o f some part o f us i n t o various materials, any study o f one m e d i u m helps us t o understand all the others. M o n e y is no exception. T h e p r i m i t i v e or nonliterate use o f money is especially enlightening, since i t manifests an easy acceptance o f staple products as media o f communication. T h e nonliterate m a n can accept any staple as money, p a r t l y because the staples o f a c o m m u n i t y are as m u c h media o f communication as they are commodities. C o t t o n , wheat, cattle, tobacco, timber, fish, f u r , and m a n y other products have acted as major shaping forces o f c o m m u n i t y life i n m a n y cultures. W h e n one o f these staples becomes dominant as a social b o n d , i t serves, also, as a store o f value, and as a translator o r exchanger o f skills and tasks. T h e classic curse o f Midas, his p o w e r o f translating all he touched i n t o gold, is i n some degree the character o f any m e d i u m , i n c l u d i n g language. T h i s m y t h draws attention t o a magic aspect o f all extensions o f human sense and b o d y ; that is, t o all technology whatever. A l l technology has the Midas t o u c h . W h e n a c o m m u n i t y develops some extension o f itself, i t tends t o allow all other functions to be altered t o accommodate that f o r m . Language, like currency, acts as a store o f perception and as a transmitter of the perceptions and experience o f one person or of one generation t o another. As b o t h a translator and store-

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house of experience, language is, i n addition, a reducer and a distorter o f experience. T h e v e r y great advantage o f accelerating the learning process, and o f m a k i n g possible the transmission of knowledge and insight across time and space, easily overrides the disadvantages o f linguistic codifications of experience. I n modern mathematics and science there are increasingly more and more nonverbal ways o f c o d i f y i n g experience. M o n e y , like language a store o f w o r k and experience, acts also as translator and transmitter. Especially since the w r i t t e n w o r d has advanced the separation o f social functions, money is able t o move away f r o m its role as store o f w o r k . T h i s role is obvious w h e n a staple or c o m m o d i t y like cattle or f u r is used as money. As m o n e y separates itself f r o m the c o m m o d i t y f o r m and becomes a specialist agent o f exchange ( o r translator of values), i t moves w i t h greater speed and i n ever greater volume. Even i n recent times, the dramatic arrival o f paper currency, or "representative m o n e y , " as a substitute f o r c o m m o d i t y money caused confusions. M u c h i n the same w a y , the Gutenberg technolo g y created a vast new republic o f letters, and stirred great confusion about the boundaries between the realms o f literature and life. Representative money, based o n p r i n t technology, created new speedy dimensions of credit that were quite inconsistent w i t h the inert mass o f bullion and o f c o m m o d i t y money. Y e t all efforts were bent t o make the speedy n e w money behave like the slow b u l l i o n coach. J. M . Keynes stated this p o l i c y i n A Treatise on Money: Thus the long age of Commodity Money has at last passed finally away before the age of Representative Money. Gold has ceased to be a coin, a hoard, a tangible claim to wealth, of which the value cannot slip away so long as the hand of the individual clutches the material stuff. I t has become a much more abstract thing—just a standard of value; and i t only keeps this nominal status by being handed round from time to time i n quite small quantities amongst a group of Central Banks, on the occasions when one of them has been inflating or deflating its managed representative money i n a different degree f r o m what is appropriate to the behavior of its neighbours.

Money/141 Paper, or representative money, has specialized itself away f r o m the ancient role o f money as a store o f w o r k i n t o the equally ancient and basic f u n c t i o n o f money as transmitter and expediter o f any k i n d of w o r k i n t o any other k i n d . Just as the alphabet was a drastic visual abstraction f r o m the r i c h hieroglyphic c u l ture o f the Egyptians, so i t also reduced and translated that c u l ture i n t o the great visual vortex o f the Graeco-Roman w o r l d . T h e alphabet is a one-way process of reduction of nonliterate cultures into the specialist visual fragments o f our W e s t e r n w o r l d . M o n e y is an adjunct o f that specialist alphabetic technology, raising even the Gutenberg f o r m of mechanical repeatability t o n e w intensity. As the alphabet neutralized the divergencies o f p r i m i t i v e cultures b y translation of their complexities into simple visual terms, so representative money reduced moral values i n the nineteenth century. A s paper expedited the p o w e r of the alphabet t o reduce the oral barbarians to Roman u n i f o r m i t y o f civilization, so paper money enabled W e s t e r n i n d u s t r y to blanket the globe. S h o r t l y before the advent o f paper money, the greatly i n creased volume of i n f o r m a t i o n movement i n European newsletters and newspapers created the image and concept of N a t i o n a l Credit. Such a corporate image of credit depended, then as n o w , o n the fast and comprehensive i n f o r m a t i o n movement that w e have taken f o r granted f o r t w o centuries and more. A t that stage o f the emergence of public credit, money assumed the f u r t h e r role o f translating, not just local, b u t national stores o f w o r k f r o m one culture t o another. One o f the inevitable results of acceleration of i n f o r m a t i o n movement and o f the translating power o f money is the opport u n i t y o f enrichment f o r those w h o can anticipate this transf o r m a t i o n b y a f e w hours or years, as the case may be. W e are particularly familiar today w i t h examples o f enrichment b y means o f advance i n f o r m a t i o n i n stocks and bonds and real estate. I n the past, w h e n wealth was n o t so obviously related t o i n f o r m a t i o n , an entire social class c o u l d monopolize the wealth resulting f r o m a casual shift i n technology. Keynes' r e p o r t o f just such an i n stance, i n his study o f "Shakespeare and the P r o f i t Inflations," explains that since new wealth and b u l l i o n fall first t o the g o v -

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erning classes, they experience a sudden buoyancy and euphoria, a glad release f r o m the habitual stress and anxieties that fosters a prosperity, w h i c h i n t u r n inspires the starving artist i n his garret t o invent n e w t r i u m p h a n t r h y t h m s and exultant forms o f painting and poetry. As l o n g as profits leap w e l l ahead o f wages, the governing class cavorts i n a style that inspires the greatest c o n ceptions i n the bosom o f the impecunious artist. W h e n , however, profits and wages keep i n reasonable t o u c h , this abounding j o y o f the governing class is correspondingly diminished, and art then cannot benefit f r o m prosperity. Keynes discovered the dynamics o f money as a medium. T h e real task o f a study o f this one m e d i u m is identical w i t h that o f the study o f all media; namely, as Keynes w r o t e , " t o treat the problem dynamically, analyzing the different elements involved, i n such a manner as to exhibit the causal process b y w h i c h the price level is determined, and the method o f transition f r o m one posit i o n o f equilibrium t o another." I n a w o r d , money is not a closed system, and does n o t have its meaning alone. As a translator and amplifier, m o n e y has exceptional powers o f substituting one k i n d o f t h i n g f o r another. I n f o r m a t i o n analysts have come t o the conclusion that the degree t o w h i c h one resource can be substituted f o r another increases w h e n i n f o r m a t i o n increases. As w e k n o w more, w e r e l y less o n any one f o o d or f u e l or r a w material. Clothes and f u r n i t u r e can n o w be made f r o m many different materials. M o n e y , w h i c h had been f o r many centuries the principal transmitter and exchanger o f i n f o r m a t i o n , is n o w having its f u n c t i o n increasingly transferred t o science and automation. T o d a y , even natural resources have an informational aspect. T h e y exist b y v i r t u e o f the culture and skill o f some c o m m u n i t y . T h e reverse, however, is true also. A l l media—or extension o f man—are natural resources that exist b y virtue o f the shared k n o w l edge and skill o f a c o m m u n i t y . I t was awareness o f this aspect o f money that h i t Robinson Crusoe v e r y hard w h e n he visited the w r e c k , resulting i n the meditation quoted at the beginning of this chapter. W h e n there are goods b u t no money, some sort o f barter—

Money/143 or direct exchange o f one p r o d u c t f o r another—has t o occur. W h e n , however, i n nonliterate societies goods are used i n direct exchange, then i t is easiest t o note their tendency t o include the f u n c t i o n o f money. Some w o r k has been done t o some material, i f o n l y i n b r i n g i n g i t f r o m a distance. T h e object, then, stores w o r k and i n f o r m a t i o n or technical knowledge t o the extent that something has been done t o i t . W h e n the one object is exchanged f o r another, i t is already assuming the f u n c t i o n o f money, as translator or reducer o f m u l t i p l e things t o some c o m m o n denominator. T h e common denominator ( o r translator) is, however, also a time-saver and expediter. A s such, money is time, and i t w o u l d be hard t o separate labor-saving f r o m time-saving i n this operation. T h e r e is a mystery about the Phoenicians, w h o , although t h e y were avid maritime traders, adopted coinage later than the landed Lydians. T h e reason assigned f o r this delay m a y n o t explain the Phoenician problem, b u t i t draws sharp attention t o a basic fact about money as a m e d i u m ; namely, that those w h o traded b y caravan required a l i g h t and portable m e d i u m o f payment. T h i s need was less f o r those w h o , like the Phoenicians, traded b y sea. P o r t a b i l i t y , as a means o f expediting and extending the effective distance o f action, was also notably illustrated b y papyrus. T h e alphabet was one t h i n g w h e n applied t o clay or stone, and quite another w h e n set d o w n o n l i g h t papyrus. T h e resulting leap i n speed and space created the Roman E m p i r e . I n the industrial age the increasingly exact measurement o f w o r k revealed time-saving as a major aspect o f labor-saving. T h e media of money and w r i t i n g and clock began t o converge i n t o an organic w h o l e again that has b r o u g h t us as close t o the total involvement o f man i n his w o r k , as o f native i n a p r i m i t i v e society, or of artist i n his studio. M o n e y i n one o f its features provides a natural transition t o number because the m o n e y hoard or collection has m u c h i n c o m m o n w i t h the c r o w d . Moreover, the psychological patterns o f the c r o w d and those associated w i t h accumulations o f wealth are v e r y close. Elias Canetti stresses that the dynamic w h i c h is basic t o crowds is the urge t o r a p i d and u n l i m i t e d g r o w t h . T h e same p o w e r dynamic is characteristic o f large concentrations o f w e a l t h

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o r treasure. I n fact, the m o d e r n u n i t o f treasure i n popular use is the million. I t is a u n i t acceptable t o any t y p e o f currency. A l w a y s associated w i t h the million is the idea that i t can be reached b y a rapid speculative scramble. I n the same w a y , Canetti explains h o w the ambition to see numbers m o u n t i n g u p was t y p i c a l o f H i t l e r ' s speeches. N o t o n l y do crowds o f people and piles o f m o n e y strive t o w a r d increase, b u t t h e y also breed uneasiness about the possibility o f disintegration and deflation. T h i s t w o - w a y movement o f expansion and deflation seems t o be the cause o f the restlessness o f crowds and the uneasiness that goes w i t h wealth. Canetti spends a good deal o f analysis on the psychic effects o f the German i n flation after the First W o r l d W a r . T h e depreciation of the citizen w e n t along w i t h that o f the German mark. T h e r e was a loss o f face and o f w o r t h i n w h i c h the personal and monetary units became confused.

15 Clocks The Scent of Time

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W r i t i n g on Communication in Africa, Leonard D o o b observes: " T h e turban, the s w o r d and nowadays the alarm clock are w o r n or carried t o signify high r a n k . " Presumably i t w i l l be rather l o n g before the A f r i c a n w i l l w a t c h the clock i n order t o be punctual. Just as a great r e v o l u t i o n i n mathematics came w h e n positional, tandem n u m bers were discovered (302 instead o f 32, and so o n ) , so great cultural changes occurred i n the W e s t w h e n i t was f o u n d possible to fix time as something that happens between t w o points. F r o m this application o f visual, abstract, and u n i f o r m units came our W e s t e r n feeling f o r time as duration. F r o m our division o f time i n t o u n i f o r m , visualizable units comes our sense o f duration and our impatience w h e n w e cannot endure the delay between events. Such a sense o f impatience, or o f time as duration, is u n k n o w n among n o n literate cultures. Just as work began w i t h

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the division o f labor, duration begins w i t h the division o f time, and especially w i t h those subdivisions b y w h i c h mechanical clocks impose u n i f o r m succession o n the time sense. As a piece o f technology, the clock is a machine that p r o duces u n i f o r m seconds, minutes, and hours on an assembly-line pattern. Processed i n this u n i f o r m w a y , time is separated f r o m the r h y t h m s o f human experience. T h e mechanical clock, i n short, helps t o create the image o f a numerically quantified and mechanically powered universe. I t was i n the w o r l d o f the medieval monasteries, w i t h their need f o r a rule and f o r synchronized order t o guide communal life, that the clock g o t started o n its modern developments. T i m e measured n o t b y the uniqueness o f private experience b u t b y abstract u n i f o r m units gradually pervades all sense life, m u c h as does the technology o f w r i t i n g and p r i n t i n g . N o t o n l y w o r k , b u t also eating and sleeping, came t o accommodate themselves t o the clock rather than t o organic needs. As the pattern o f arbitrary and u n i f o r m measurement o f time extended itself across society, even c l o t h i n g began to undergo annual alteration i n a w a y convenient f o r industry. A t that point, of course, mechanical measurement o f time as a principle of applied knowledge joined forces w i t h p r i n t i n g and assembly line as means o f u n i f o r m fragmentation o f processes. T h e most integral and i n v o l v i n g time sense imaginable is that expressed i n the Chinese and Japanese cultures. U n t i l the coming of the missionaries i n the seventeenth century, and the i n t r o d u c t i o n o f the mechanical clocks, the Chinese and Japanese had f o r t h o u sands o f years measured time b y graduations of incense. N o t o n l y the hours and days, b u t the seasons and zodiacal signs were simultaneously indicated b y a succession o f carefully ordered scents. T h e sense o f smell, l o n g considered the r o o t of m e m o r y and the u n i f y i n g basis o f individuality, has come t o the f o r e again i n the experiments o f W i l d e r Penfield. D u r i n g brain surgery, electric p r o b i n g o f brain tissue revived m a n y memories o f the patients. These evocations were dominated and unified b y unique scents and odors that structured these past experiences. T h e sense o f smell is n o t o n l y the most subtle and delicate of the human senses; i t is, also, the most iconic i n that i t involves the entire human

Clocks/Hi sensorium more f u l l y than any other sense. I t is n o t surprising, therefore, that h i g h l y literate societies take steps t o reduce or eliminate odors f r o m the environment. B.O., the unique signature and declaration of human individuality, is a bad w o r d i n literate societies. I t is far too i n v o l v i n g f o r our habits o f detachment and specialist attention. Societies that measured time scents w o u l d tend t o be so cohesive and so p r o f o u n d l y unified as t o resist every k i n d o f change. Lewis M u m f o r d has suggested that the clock preceded the p r i n t i n g press i n order o f influence o n the mechanization o f society. B u t M u m f o r d takes no account o f the phonetic alphabet as the technology that had made possible the visual and u n i f o r m fragmentation o f time. M u m f o r d , i n fact, is unaware o f the alphabet as the source o f W e s t e r n mechanism, just as he is unaware o f mechanization as the translation o f society f r o m audile-tactile modes i n t o visual values. O u r new electric technology is organic and nonmechanical i n tendency because i t extends, n o t our eyes, b u t o u r central nervous systems as a planetary vesture. I n the space-time w o r l d o f electric technology, the older mechanical time begins to feel unacceptable, i f o n l y because i t is u n i f o r m . M o d e r n linguistics studies are structural rather than l i t e r a r y , and owe m u c h t o the n e w possibilities o f computers f o r translat i o n . A s soon as an entire language is examined as a unified system, strange pockets appear. L o o k i n g at the usage scale o f English, M a r t i n Joos has w i t t i l y designated " f i v e clocks of style," or five different zones and independent cultural climates. O n l y one o f these zones is the area o f responsibility. T h i s is the zone o f homogeneity and u n i f o r m i t y that i n k - b r o w e d Gutenberg rules as his domain. I t is the style-zone o f Standard English pervaded b y Central Standard T i m e , and w i t h i n this zone the dwellers, as i t were, m a y show v a r y i n g degrees o f p u n c t u a l i t y . E d w a r d T . H a l l i n The Silent Language discusses h o w " T i m e Talks: A m e r i c a n Accents," contrasting o u r time-sense w i t h that o f the H o p i Indians. T i m e f o r them is n o t a u n i f o r m succession o r duration, b u t a pluralism o f m a n y kinds of things co-existing. " I t is w h a t happens w h e n the c o r n matures o r a sheep grows u p . . . . I t is the natural process that takes place w h i l e l i v i n g

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substance acts o u t its life drama." Therefore, as many kinds of time exist f o r them as there are kinds o f life. T h i s , also, is the k i n d of time-sense held b y the modern physicist and scientist. T h e y no longer t r y to contain events i n time, b u t t h i n k of each t h i n g as making its o w n time and its o w n space. Moreover, n o w that w e live electrically i n an instantaneous w o r l d , space and time interpenetrate each other t o t a l l y i n a space-time w o r l d . I n the same w a y , the painter, since Cézanne, has recovered the plastic image b y w h i c h all o f the senses coexist i n a unified pattern. Each object and each set of objects engenders its o w n unique space b y the relations i t has among others visually or musically. W h e n this awareness recurred i n the W e s t e r n w o r l d , i t was denounced as the merging o f all things i n a flux. W e n o w realize that this anxiety was a natural literary and visual response t o the n e w nonvisual technology. J. Z. Y o u n g , i n Doubt and Certainty in Science, explains h o w electricity is n o t something that is conveyed b y or contained i n anything, b u t is something that occurs w h e n t w o or more bodies are i n special positions. O u r language derived f r o m phonetic technology cannot cope w i t h this n e w v i e w o f knowledge. W e still talk o f electric current " f l o w i n g , " or w e speak o f the "discharge" o f electric energy like the lineal firing of guns. B u t quite as m u c h as w i t h the esthetic magic o f painterly power, "electricity is the c o n d i t i o n w e observe w h e n there are certain spatial relations between things." T h e painter learns h o w to adjust relations among things t o release n e w perception, and the chemist and physicist learn h o w other relations release other kinds o f power. Less and less, i n the electric age, can w e find any g o o d reason f o r imposing the same set of relations o n every k i n d o f object or group o f objects. Y e t i n the ancient w o r l d the o n l y means o f achieving p o w e r was getting a thousand slaves to act as one man. D u r i n g the M i d d l e Ages the communal clock extended b y the bell perm i t t e d h i g h coordination of the energies of small communities. I n the Renaissance the clock combined w i t h the u n i f o r m respectability of the new t y p o g r a p h y t o extend the p o w e r o f social organization almost to a national scale. B y the nineteenth century i t had provided a technology o f cohesion that was inseparable

Clocks/149 f r o m industry and transport, enabling an entire metropolis to act almost as an automaton. N o w i n the electric age of decentralized p o w e r and i n f o r m a t i o n w e begin to chafe under the u n i f o r m i t y o f clock-time. I n this age of space-time w e seek m u l t i p l i c i t y , rather than repeatability, o f r h y t h m s . T h i s is the difference between marching soldiers and ballet. I t is a necessary approach i n understanding media and technolo g y t o realize that w h e n the spell o f the g i m m i c k or an extension of our bodies is new, there comes narcosis or n u m b i n g to the n e w l y amplified area. T h e complaints about clocks d i d n o t begin u n t i l the electric age had made their mechanical sort of time starkly incongruous. I n our electric century the mechanical t i m e kept c i t y looks like an aggregation of somnambulists and zombies, made familiar i n the early part of T . S. Eliot's The Waste Land. O n a planet reduced to village size b y new media, cities themselves appear quaint and odd, like archaic forms already overlaid w i t h new patterns of culture. H o w e v e r , w h e n mechanical clocks had been given great new force and practicality b y mechanical w r i t i n g , as p r i n t i n g was at first called, the response to the n e w time sense was v e r y ambiguous and even m o c k i n g . Shakespeare's sonnets are f u l l o f the t w i n themes of i m m o r t a l i t y o f fame conferred b y the engine o f p r i n t , as w e l l as the p e t t y f u t i l i t y o f daily existence as measured b y the clock: W h e n I doe count the clock that tels the time, A n d see the brave day sunck i n hidious night. . . . Then of thy beauty do I question make That thou among the wastes of time must goe. (Sonnet X) I n Macbeth, Shakespeare links the t w i n technologies o f print and mechanical time i n the familiar soliloquy, to manifest the disintegration o f Macbeth's w o r l d : T o m o r r o w , and tomorrow, and tomorrow Creeps i n this petty pace f r o m day to day, T o the last syllable of recorded time. T i m e , as hacked into u n i f o r m successive bits b y clock and p r i n t together, became a major theme of the Renaissance neurosis, i n -

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separable f r o m the n e w c u l t o f precise measurement i n the sciences. I n Sonnet LX, Shakespeare puts mechanical time at the beginning, and the new engine o f i m m o r t a l i t y ( p r i n t ) at the end: Like as the waves make towards the pibled shore, So do our minuites hasten to their end, Each changing place w i t h that which goes before, I n sequent toil all forwards do contend. . . . A n d yet to times i n hope, m y verse shall stand Praising t h y worth, dispight his cruell hand. John Donne's poem on " T h e Sun R i s i n g " exploits the contrast between aristocratic and bourgeois time. T h e one trait that most damned the bourgeoisie o f the nineteenth c e n t u r y was their punctuality, their pedantic devotion t o mechanical-time and sequential order. As space-time flooded t h r o u g h the gates o f awareness f r o m the n e w electric technology, all mechanical observance became distasteful and even ridiculous. Donne had the same ironic sense o f the irrelevance o f clock-time, b u t pretended that i n the k i n g d o m o f love even the great cosmic cycles o f time were also p e t t y aspects o f the clock: Busy old fool, unruly Sun, W h y dost thou thus Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to t h y motions lovers' seasons run? Saucy, pedantic wretch, go chide Late school-boys, and sour prentices, Go tell Court-huntsmen, that the K i n g w i l l ride, Call country ants to harvest offices, Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, N o r hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. M u c h o f Donne's t w e n t i e t h - c e n t u r y vogue was due t o his challenging the a u t h o r i t y o f the n e w Gutenberg age t o invest h i m w i t h the stigmata of u n i f o r m repeatable t y p o g r a p h y and w i t h the motives of precise visual measurement. I n like manner, A n d r e w Marvell's " T o his C o y Mistress" was f u l l o f contempt f o r the new spirit o f measurement and calculation o f time and virtue: Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime

Clocks/151 W e would sit down and think which way T o walk, and pass our long love's day. . . . A n hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; T w o hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; A n age at least to every part, A n d the last age should show your heart, For lady, you deserve this state, N o r would I love at lower rate. M a r v e l l merged the rates o f exchange w i t h the rates o f praise suited t o the conventional and fashionably fragmented outlook o f his inamorata. For her box-office approach t o reality, he substituted another time-structure, and a different model of perception. I t is n o t unlike Hamlet's " L o o k o n this picture and o n t h a t . " Instead o f a quiet bourgeois translation o f the medieval love code i n t o the language o f the n e w middle-class tradesman, w h y n o t a B y r o n i c caper t o the farther shores o f ideal love? But at m y back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near; A n d yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. H e r e is the new lineal perspective that had come t o painting w i t h Gutenberg, b u t that had n o t entered the verbal universe u n t i l M i l t o n ' s Paradise Lost. E v e n w r i t t e n language had resisted f o r t w o centuries the abstract visual order o f lineal succession and vanishing point. T h e next age after M a r v e l l , however, t o o k t o landscape p o e t r y and the subordination o f language t o special visual effects. B u t M a r v e l l concluded his reverse strategy f o r the conquest o f bourgeois clock-time w i t h the observation Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we w i l l make him run. H e proposed that his beloved and he should transform themselves i n t o a cannonball and fire themselves at the sun t o make i t r u n . T i m e can be defeated, as i t were, b y reversal o f its characteristics i f o n l y i t be speeded u p enough. Experience o f this fact awaited

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the electronic age, w h i c h f o u n d that instant speeds abolish time and space, and r e t u r n man to an integral and primitive awareness. T o d a y n o t o n l y clock-time, b u t the wheel itself, is obsolescent and is retracting into animal f o r m under the impulse of greater and greater speeds. I n the poem above, A n d r e w Marvell's i n t u i t i o n that clock-time could be defeated b y speed was quite sound. A t present the mechanical begins t o y i e l d to organic u n i t y under conditions o f electric speeds. M a n n o w can look back at t w o or three thousand years o f v a r y i n g degrees of mechanization w i t h f u l l awareness o f the mechanical as an interlude between t w o great organic periods of culture. I n 1911 the Italian sculptor Boccioni said, " W e are primitives o f an u n k n o w n c u l t u r e . " H a l f a century later w e k n o w a b i t more about the n e w culture of the electronic age, and that knowledge has l i f t e d the mystery surrounding the machine. As contrasted w i t h the mere t o o l , the machine is an extension or outering of a process. T h e t o o l extends the fist, the nails, the teeth, the arm. T h e wheel extends the feet i n rotation or sequential movement. P r i n t i n g , the first complete mechanization o f a handicraft, breaks up the movement o f the hand i n t o a series o f discrete steps that are as repeatable as the wheel is r o t a r y . F r o m this anal y t i c sequence came the assembly-line principle, b u t the assembly line is n o w obsolete i n the electric age because synchronization is no longer sequential. B y electric tapes, synchronization of any number of different acts can be simultaneous. T h u s the mechanical principle o f analysis i n series has come to an end. Even the wheel has n o w come t o an end i n principle, although the mechanical stratum o f our culture carries i t still as part o f an accumulated momentum, an archaic configuration. T h e m o d e r n clock, mechanical i n principle, embodied the wheel. T h e clock has ceased t o have its older meanings and f u n c tions. Plurality-of-times succeeds u n i f o r m i t y - o f - t i m e . T o d a y i t is o n l y too easy t o have dinner i n N e w Y o r k and indigestion i n Paris. Travelers also have the daily experience o f being at one hour i n a culture that is still 3000 B . C . , and at the next hour i n a culture that is 1900 A.D. Most of N o r t h A m e r i c a n life is, i n its externals, conducted on nineteeth-century lines. O u r inner experience, i n -

Clocks/153 creasingly at variance w i t h these mechanical patterns, is electric, inclusive, and m y t h i c i n mode. T h e m y t h i c or iconic mode o f awareness substitutes the multi-faceted f o r p o i n t - o f - v i e w . Historians agree o n the basic role o f the clock i n monastic life f o r the synchronization o f human tasks. T h e acceptance of such fragmenting o f life i n t o minutes and hours was unthinkable, save i n h i g h l y literate communities. Readiness to submit the human organism to the alien mode of mechanical time was as dependent u p o n literacy i n the first Christian centuries as i t is today. F o r the clock t o dominate, there has t o be the p r i o r acceptance o f the visual stress that is inseparable f r o m phonetic literacy. L i t e r a c y is itself an abstract asceticism that prepares the w a y f o r endless patterns o f privation i n the human c o m m u n i t y . W i t h universal literacy, time can take o n the character of an enclosed or pictorial space that can be divided and subdivided. I t can be filled-in. " M y schedule is filled u p . " I t can be kept free: " I have a free week next m o n t h . " A n d as Sebastian de Grazia has shown i n Of Time, Work and Leisure, all the free t i m e i n the w o r l d is n o t leisure, because leisure accepts neither the division o f labor that constitutes " w o r k , " nor the divisions o f time that create " f u l l t i m e " and "free t i m e . " Leisure excludes times as a container. Once time is mechanically or visually enclosed, divided, and filled, i t is possible to use i t more and more efficiently. T i m e can be transformed i n t o a labor-saving machine, as Parkinson reveals i n his famous "Parkinson's L a w . " T h e student o f the history of the clock w i l l find that a t o tally n e w principle entered w i t h the invention of the mechanical clock. T h e earliest mechanical clocks had retained the o l d p r i n ciple o f the continuous action o f the d r i v i n g force, such as was used i n the water clock and i n the water wheel. I t was about 1300 A . D . that the step was taken o f m o m e n t a r i l y i n t e r r u p t i n g r o t a r y movement b y a c r o w n r o d and balance wheel. T h i s f u n c t i o n was called "escapement" and was the means o f literally translating the continuous force o f the wheel i n t o the visual principle o f u n i f o r m b u t segmented succession. Escapement introduced the reciprocal reversing action o f the hands i n r o t a t i n g a spindle f o r w a r d and backward. T h e meeting i n the mechanical clock of this

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ancient extension o f hand movement w i t h the f o r w a r d r o t a r y m o t i o n o f the wheel was, i n effect, the translation o f hands i n t o feet, and feet i n t o hands. Perhaps no more difficult technological extension o f interinvolved b o d i l y appendages could be f o u n d . T h e source o f the energy o f the clock was thus separated f r o m the hands, or the source o f i n f o r m a t i o n , b y technological translation. Escapement as a translation o f one k i n d o f wheel space into u n i f o r m and visual space is thus a direct anticipation o f the i n f i n i tesimal calculus that translates any k i n d o f space or movement i n t o a u n i f o r m , continuous, and visual space. Parkinson, sitting o n the fence between the mechanical and the electric uses o f w o r k and time, is able t o provide us w i t h real entertainment b y simply squinting, n o w w i t h one eye, n o w w i t h the other, at the time and w o r k picture. Cultures like ours, poised at the p o i n t o f transformation, engender b o t h tragic and comic awareness i n great abundance. I t is the maximal interplay of d i verse forms o f perception and experience that makes great the cultures o f the f i f t h century B . C . , the sixteenth century, and the twentieth century. B u t f e w people have enjoyed l i v i n g i n these intense periods w h e n all that ensures f a m i l i a r i t y and security dissolves and is reconfigured i n a f e w decades. I t was n o t the clock, b u t literacy reinforced b y the clock, that created abstract time and led men t o eat, n o t w h e n t h e y were h u n g r y , b u t w h e n i t was "time t o eat." Lewis M u m f o r d makes a telling observation w h e n he says that the abstract mechanical timesense o f the Renaissance enabled men t o live i n the classical past, and t o tear themselves o u t o f their o w n present. H e r e again, i t was the p r i n t i n g press that made possible the re-creation o f the classic past b y mass p r o d u c t i o n o f its literature and texts. T h e establishment o f a mechanical and abstract time pattern soon extends itself t o periodic alteration o f c l o t h i n g styles, m u c h i n the same w a y that mass p r o d u c t i o n extends itself t o periodic publicat i o n o f newspapers and magazines. T o d a y w e take f o r granted that the job of Vogue magazine is t o alter the dress styles as part of the process o f its being printed at all. W h e n a t h i n g is current, i t creates currency; fashion creates wealth b y m o v i n g textiles and making them ever more current. T h i s process w e have seen at

Clocks/155 w o r k i n the section o n " M o n e y . " Clocks are mechanical media that transform tasks and create new w o r k and wealth b y accelerati n g the pace of human association. B y coordinating and accelerati n g human meetings and goings-on, clocks increase the sheer q u a n t i t y o f human exchange. I t is n o t really incongruous, therefore, w h e n M u m f o r d associates "the clock and the p r i n t i n g press and the blast furnace" as the giant innovations o f the Renaissance. T h e clock, as m u c h as the blast furnace, speeded the m e l t i n g o f materials and the rise o f smooth c o n f o r m i t y i n the contours of social life. L o n g before the industrial r e v o l u t i o n o f the later eighteenth century, people complained that society had become a "prose machine" that whisked them t h r o u g h l i f e at a dizzy pace. T h e clock dragged man o u t of the w o r l d o f seasonal r h y t h m s and recurrence, as effectively as the alphabet had released h i m f r o m the magical resonance o f the spoken w o r d and the tribal t r a p . T h i s dual translation of the individual o u t o f the g r i p o f N a t u r e and o u t o f the c l u t c h o f the tribe was n o t w i t h o u t its o w n penalties. B u t the r e t u r n to N a t u r e and the r e t u r n t o the tribe are under electric conditions, fatally simple. W e need beware o f those w h o announce programs f o r restoring man t o the original state and language of the race. These crusaders have never examined the role of media and technology i n tossing man about f r o m dimension to dimension. T h e y are like the somnambulistic A f r i c a n chief w i t h the alarm clock strapped t o his back. Mircea Eliade, professor of comparative religion, is unaware, i n The Sacred and the Profane, that a "sacred" universe i n his sense is one dominated b y the spoken w o r d and b y a u d i t o r y media. A " p r o f a n e " universe, on the other hand, is one dominated b y the visual sense. T h e clock and the alphabet, b y hacking the universe i n t o visual segments, ended the music o f interrelation. T h e visual desacralizes the universe and produces the "nonreligious man o f modern societies." Historically, however, Eliade is useful i n recounting h o w , before the age o f the clock and the time-kept c i t y , there was f o r t r i b a l man a cosmic clock and a sacred time of the cosmogony itself. W h e n tribal man wanted t o b u i l d a c i t y or a house, or cure

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an illness, he w o u n d up the cosmic clock b y an elaborate ritual reenactment or recitation of the original process o f creation. Eliade mentions that i n F i j i "the ceremony f o r installing a n e w ruler is called 'creation of the w o r l d . ' " T h e same drama is enacted t o help the g r o w t h o f crops. Whereas m o d e r n man feels obligated t o be punctual and conservative o f time, tribal man bore the responsibility f o r keeping the cosmic clock supplied w i t h energy. B u t electric or ecological man (man o f the total field) can be expected t o surpass the o l d tribal cosmic concern w i t h the A f r i c a within. Primitive man lived i n a m u c h more tyrannical cosmic machine than W e s t e r n literate man has ever invented. T h e w o r l d of the ear is more embracing and inclusive than that o f the eye can ever be. T h e ear is hypersensitive. T h e eye is cool and detached. T h e ear turns man over t o universal panic w h i l e the eye, extended b y literacy and mechanical time, leaves some gaps and some islands free f r o m the u n r e m i t t i n g acoustic pressure and reverberation.

16 The Print How to Dig It

T h e art o f m a k i n g pictorial statements i n a precise and repeatable f o r m is one that w e have l o n g taken f o r granted i n the West. B u t i t is usually f o r g o t t e n that w i t h o u t prints and blueprints, w i t h o u t maps and geometry, the w o r l d of m o d e r n sciences and technologies w o u l d h a r d l y exist. I n the time o f Ferdinand and Isabella and other maritime monarchs, maps were top-secret, like n e w electronic discoveries today. W h e n the captains returned f r o m their voyages, every effort was made b y the officers o f the c r o w n t o obtain b o t h originals and copies o f the maps made d u r i n g the voyage. T h e result was a l u crative black-market trade, and secret maps were w i d e l y sold. T h e sort o f maps i n question had n o t h i n g i n c o m m o n w i t h those o f later design, being i n fact m o r e like diaries o f different adventures and experiences. For the later perception o f space as u n i f o r m and continuous was u n k n o w n to the medieval cartographer,

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whose efforts resembled m o d e r n nonobjective art. T h e shock o f the new Renaissance space is still f e l t b y natives w h o encounter i t today f o r the first time. Prince M o d u p e tells i n his autobiography, I Was a Savage, h o w he had learned t o read maps at school, and h o w he had taken back home t o his village a map o f a river his father had traveled f o r years as a trader. . . . m y father thought the whole idea was absurd. H e refused to identify the stream he had crossed at Bomako, where i t is no deeper, he said, than a man is high, w i t h the great widespread waters of the vast Niger delta. Distances as measured in miles had no meaning for him. . . . Maps are liars, he told me briefly. From his tone of voice I could tell that I had offended him i n some way not known to me at the time. The things that hurt one do not show on a map. The truth of a place is in the joy and the hurt that come from i t . I had best not put m y trust in anything as inadequate as a map, he counseled. . . . I understand now, although I did not at the time, that m y airy and easy sweep of map-traced staggering distances belittled the journeys he had measured on tired feet. W i t h m y big map-talk, I had effaced the magnitude of his cargo-laden, heat-weighted treks. A l l the w o r d s i n the w o r l d cannot describe an object like a bucket, although i t is possible t o tell i n a f e w w o r d s h o w t o make a bucket. T h i s inadequacy o f w o r d s t o convey visual i n f o r m a t i o n about objects was an effectual b l o c k t o the development o f the Greek and Roman sciences. P l i n y the Elder reported the inability of the Greek and L a t i n botanists to devise a means o f transmitting i n f o r m a t i o n about plants and flowers: Hence it is that other writers have confined themselves to a verbal description of the plants; indeed some of them have not so much as described them even, but have contented themselves f o r the most part w i t h a bare recital of their names . . . W e are c o n f r o n t e d here once more w i t h that basic f u n c t i o n o f media—to store and t o expedite i n f o r m a t i o n . Plainly, to store is t o expedite, since w h a t is stored is also more accessible than w h a t has t o be gathered. T h e fact that visual i n f o r m a t i o n about flowers and plants cannot be stored verbally also points to the fact that

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science i n the W e s t e r n w o r l d has l o n g been dependent o n the visual factor. N o r is this surprising i n a literate culture based o n the technology o f the alphabet, one that reduces even spoken language t o a visual mode. As electricity has created multiple n o n visual means of storing and retrieving i n f o r m a t i o n , n o t o n l y c u l ture b u t science also has shifted its entire base and character. F o r the educator, as w e l l as the philosopher, exact knowledge o f w h a t this shift means f o r learning and the mental process is n o t necessary. W e l l before Gutenberg's development o f p r i n t i n g f r o m m o v able types, a great deal of p r i n t i n g on paper b y w o o d c u t had been done. Perhaps the most popular f o r m o f this k i n d o f b l o c k p r i n t i n g o f text and image had been i n the f o r m o f the Biblia Pauperum, o r Bibles o f the Poor. Printers i n this w o o d c u t sense preceded typographic printers, t h o u g h b y just h o w l o n g a period i t is n o t easy t o establish, because these cheap and popular prints, despised b y the learned, were n o t preserved any more than are the comic books of today. T h e great l a w o f bibliography comes i n t o play i n this matter of the p r i n t i n g that precedes Gutenberg: " T h e more there were, the fewer there are." I t applies t o m a n y items besides printed matter—to the postage stamp and t o the early forms of radio receiving sets. Medieval and Renaissance man experienced little o f the separation and specialty among the arts that developed later. T h e manuscript and the earlier printed books w e r e read aloud, and p o e t r y was sung or intoned. O r a t o r y , music, literature, and d r a w i n g were closely related. A b o v e all, the w o r l d o f the illuminated manuscript was one i n w h i c h lettering itself was given plastic stress t o an almost sculptural degree. I n a study o f the art o f Andrea Mantegna, the illuminator o f manuscripts, M i l l a r d Meiss mentions that, amidst the flowery and leafy margins of the page, Mantegna's letters "rise like monuments, stony, stable and finely cut. . . . Palpably soled and w e i g h t y , t h e y stand b o l d l y before the colored ground, u p o n w h i c h they o f t e n t h r o w a shadow. . . T h e same feeling f o r the letters o f the alphabet as engraved icons has returned i n our o w n day i n the graphic arts and i n advertising display. Perhaps the reader w i l l have encountered the

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sense o f this c o m i n g change i n Rimbaud's sonnet on the vowels, or i n some o f Braque's paintings. B u t o r d i n a r y newspaper headline style tends to push letters t o w a r d the iconic f o r m , a f o r m that is v e r y near t o a u d i t o r y resonance, as i t is also t o tactile and sculptural quality. Perhaps the supreme quality o f the p r i n t is one that is lost o n us, since i t has so casual and obvious an existence. I t is simply that i t is a pictorial statement that can be repeated precisely and indefinitely—at least as l o n g as the p r i n t i n g surface lasts. Repeatability is the core o f the mechanical principle that has dominated our w o r l d , especially since the Gutenberg technology. T h e message o f the p r i n t and o f t y p o g r a p h y is p r i m a r i l y that o f repeatability. W i t h t y p o g r a p h y , the principle o f movable t y p e i n t r o duced the means o f mechanizing any handicraft b y the process of segmenting and fragmenting an integral action. W h a t had begun w i t h the alphabet as a separation o f the m u l t i p l e gestures and sights and sounds i n the spoken w o r d , reached a n e w level of intensity, first w i t h the w o o d c u t and then w i t h t y p o g r a p h y . T h e alphabet l e f t the visual component as supreme i n the w o r d , reduci n g all other sensuous facts o f the spoken w o r d t o this f o r m . T h i s helps t o explain w h y the w o o d c u t , and even the photograph, were so eagerly welcomed i n a literate w o r l d . These forms provide a w o r l d of inclusive gesture and dramatic posture that necessarily is omitted i n the w r i t t e n w o r d . T h e p r i n t was eagerly seized u p o n as a means o f i m p a r t i n g information, as w e l l as an incentive t o piety and meditation. I n 1472 the Art of War b y V o l t u r i u s was p r i n t e d at Verona, w i t h many woodcuts t o explain the machinery o f w a r . B u t the uses o f the w o o d c u t as an aid t o contemplation i n Books o f H o u r s , Emblems, and Shepherds' Calendars continued f o r t w o hundred years o n a large scale. I t is relevant t o consider that the o l d prints and woodcuts, like the modern comic strip and comic book, provide v e r y little data about any particular moment i n time, or aspect i n space, o f an object. T h e viewer, or reader, is compelled t o participate i n completing and interpreting the f e w hints provided b y the b o u n d i n g lines. N o t unlike the character o f the w o o d c u t and the car-

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t o o n is the T V image, w i t h its v e r y l o w degree o f data about objects, and the resulting high degree of participation b y the viewer i n order to complete w h a t is o n l y hinted at i n the mosaic mesh o f dots. Since the advent of T V , the comic book has gone i n t o a decline. I t is, perhaps, obvious enough that i f a cool medium involves the viewer a great deal, a h o t medium w i l l not. I t may contradict popular ideas t o say that t y p o g r a p h y as a hot medium involves the reader m u c h less than d i d manuscript, or t o p o i n t out that the comic book and T V as cool media involve the user, as maker and participant, a great deal. A f t e r the exhaustion o f the Graeco-Roman pools o f slave labor, the W e s t had to technologize more intensively than the ancient w o r l d had done. I n the same w a y the American farmer, conf r o n t e d w i t h new tasks and opportunities, and at the same time w i t h a great shortage o f human assistance, was goaded i n t o a f r e n z y o f creation o f labor-saving devices. I t w o u l d seem that the logic o f success i n this matter is the ultimate retirement of the w o r k force f r o m the scene o f t o i l . I n a w o r d , automation. I f this, however, has been the motive behind all of our human technologies, i t does not f o l l o w that w e are prepared t o accept the consequences. I t helps t o get one's bearings to see the process at w o r k i n remote times w h e n w o r k meant specialist servitude, and leisure alone meant a life o f human d i g n i t y and involvement o f the w h o l e man. T h e p r i n t i n its clumsy woodcut-phase reveals a major aspect o f language; namely, that words cannot bear sharp definit i o n i n daily use. W h e n Descartes surveyed the philosophical scene at the beginning of the seventeenth century, he was appalled at the confusion o f tongues and began t o strive t o w a r d a reduct i o n o f philosophy t o precise mathematical f o r m . T h i s striving f o r an irrelevant precision served o n l y to exclude f r o m philosophy most o f the questions of philosophy; and that great k i n g d o m of philosophy was soon parceled out i n t o the w i d e range of u n communicating sciences and specialties w e k n o w today. Intensity o f stress on visual b l u e p r i n t i n g and precision is an explosive force that fragments the w o r l d o f p o w e r and knowledge alike. T h e i n -

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creasing precision and q u a n t i t y o f visual i n f o r m a t i o n transformed the p r i n t i n t o a three-dimensional w o r l d o f perspective and fixed point o f v i e w . H i e r o n y m u s Bosch, b y means o f paintings that interfused medieval forms i n Renaissance space, t o l d w h a t i t f e l t like t o live straddled between the t w o w o r l d s o f the o l d and the new d u r i n g this r e v o l u t i o n . Simultaneously, Bosch provided the older k i n d o f plastic, tactile image b u t placed i t i n the intense n e w visual perspective. H e gave at once the older medieval idea o f unique, discontinuous space, superimposed o n the n e w idea o f u n i f o r m , connected space. T h i s he d i d w i t h earnest nightmare intensity. Lewis C a r r o l l t o o k the nineteenth century i n t o a dream w o r l d that was as startling as that o f Bosch, b u t b u i l t o n reverse p r i n ciples. Alice in Wonderland offers as n o r m that continuous time and space that had created consternation i n the Renaissance. Pervading this u n i f o r m Euclidean w o r l d of familiar space-and-time, Carroll drove a fantasia o f discontinuous space-and-time that anticipated K a f k a , Joyce, and E l i o t . Carroll, the mathematical contemporary o f Clerk M a x w e l l , was quite avant-garde enough t o k n o w about the non-Euclidean geometries c o m i n g i n t o vogue i n his time. H e gave the confident Victorians a p l a y f u l foretaste o f Einsteinian time-and-space i n Alice in Wonderland. Bosch had provided his era a foretaste o f the n e w continuous time-and-space o f u n i f o r m perspective. Bosch looked ahead t o the m o d e r n w o r l d w i t h h o r r o r , as Shakespeare d i d i n King Lear, and as Pope d i d i n The Dunciad. B u t Lewis C a r r o l l greeted the electronic age of space-time w i t h a cheer. Nigerians s t u d y i n g at A m e r i c a n universities are sometimes asked t o i d e n t i f y spatial relations. Confronted w i t h objects i n sunshine, t h e y are often unable t o indicate i n w h i c h direction shadows w i l l f a l l , f o r this involves casting i n t o three-dimensional perspective. T h u s sun, objects, and observer are experienced separately and regarded as independent o f one another. For medieval man, as f o r the native, space was n o t homogeneous and d i d n o t contain objects. Each t h i n g made its o w n space, as i t still does f o r the native (and equally f o r the modern physicist). O f course this does n o t mean that native artists do n o t relate things.

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T h e y often contrive the most complicated, sophisticated c o n figurations. N e i t h e r artist n o r observer has the slightest trouble recognizing and interpreting the pattern, b u t o n l y w h e n i t is a traditional one. I f y o u begin t o m o d i f y i t , o r translate i t i n t o another medium (three dimensions, f o r instance), the native fails to recognize i t . A n anthropological film showed a Melanesian carver c u t t i n g o u t a decorated d r u m w i t h such skill, coordination, and ease that the audience several times broke i n t o applause—it became a song, a ballet. B u t w h e n the anthropologist asked the tribe t o b u i l d crates t o ship these carvings i n , t h e y struggled unsuccessf u l l y f o r three days t o make t w o planks intersect at a 90-degree angle, then gave u p i n frustration. T h e y c o u l d n ' t crate w h a t they had created. I n the l o w definition w o r l d o f the medieval w o o d c u t , each object created its o w n space, and there was no rational connected space i n t o w h i c h i t must fit. A s the retinal impression is intensified, objects cease t o cohere i n a space o f their o w n making, and, instead, become "contained" i n a u n i f o r m , continuous, and " r a t i o n a l " space. R e l a t i v i t y t h e o r y i n 1905 announced the dissolut i o n o f u n i f o r m N e w t o n i a n space as an illusion or fiction, however useful. Einstein pronounced the d o o m o f continuous o r " r a t i o n a l " space, and the w a y was made clear f o r Picasso and the M a r x brothers and MAD.

"17

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I t was thanks t o the p r i n t that Dickens became a comic w r i t e r . H e began as a p r o vider o f c o p y f o r a popular cartoonist. T o consider the comics here, after " T h e P r i n t , " is to fix attention u p o n the persistent p r i n t like, and even crude w o o d c u t , characteristics of our t w e n t i e t h - c e n t u r y comics. I t is b y no means easy t o perceive h o w the same qualities o f p r i n t and w o o d c u t could reappear i n the mosaic mesh of the T V image. T V is so difficult a subject f o r literary people that i t has t o be approached obliquely. F r o m the three m i l l i o n dots per second o n T V , the viewer is able t o accept, i n an iconic grasp, o n l y a f e w dozen, seventy or so, f r o m w h i c h to shape an image. T h e image thus made is as crude as that o f the comics. I t is f o r this reason that the p r i n t and the comics provide a useful approach t o understanding the T V image, f o r t h e y offer v e r y little visual i n f o r m a t i o n or connected detail. Painters and sculptors, however, can easily under-

Comics/165 stand T V , because they sense h o w v e r y m u c h tactile involvement is needed f o r the appreciation of plastic art. T h e structural qualities of the p r i n t and w o o d c u t obtain, also, i n the cartoon, all o f w h i c h share a participational and d o - i t - y o u r self character that pervades a w i d e variety o f media experiences today. T h e p r i n t is clue t o the comic cartoon, just as the cartoon is clue t o understanding the T V image. M a n y a w r i n k l e d teenager recalls his fascination w i t h that pride of the comics, the " Y e l l o w K i d " o f Richard F. Outcault. O n first appearance, i t was called "Hogan's A l l e y " i n the N e w Y o r k Sunday World. I t featured a variety o f scenes o f kids f r o m the tenements, Maggie and Jiggs as children, as i t were. T h i s feature sold many papers i n 1898 and thereafter. Hearst soon b o u g h t i t , and began large-scale comic supplements. Comics (as already explained i n the chapter o n T h e P r i n t ) , being l o w i n definition, are a h i g h l y participational f o r m o f expression, perf e c t l y adapted to the mosaic f o r m of the newspaper. T h e y p r o vide, also, a sense o f c o n t i n u i t y f r o m one day t o the next. T h e individual news i t e m is v e r y l o w i n i n f o r m a t i o n , and requires completion or fill-in b y the reader, exactly as does the T V image, or the w i r e p h o t o . T h a t is the reason w h y T V h i t the comic-book w o r l d so hard. I t was a real rival, rather than a complement. B u t T V h i t the pictorial ad w o r l d even harder, dislodging the sharp and glossy, i n favor o f the shaggy, the sculptural, and the tactual. Hence the sudden eminence o f MAD magazine w h i c h offers, merely, a ludicrous and cool replay of the forms of the hot media o f p h o t o , radio, and film. MAD is the o l d p r i n t and w o o d c u t image that recurs i n various media today. Its t y p e o f configurat i o n w i l l come to shape all of the acceptable T V offerings. T h e biggest casualty o f the T V impact was A l Capp's " L i ' l A b n e r . " For eighteen years A l Capp had kept L i ' l A b n e r o n the verge o f m a t r i m o n y . T h e sophisticated f o r m u l a used w i t h his characters was the reverse o f that employed b y the French n o v elist Stendhal, w h o said, " I simply involve m y people i n the c o n sequences of their o w n stupidity and then give them brains so t h e y can suffer." A l Capp, i n effect, said, " I simply involve m y people i n the consequences of their o w n stupidity and then take

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away their brains so that they can do n o t h i n g about i t . " T h e i r inability to help themselves created a sort o f p a r o d y o f all the other suspense comics. A l Capp pushed suspense i n t o absurdity. B u t readers have l o n g enjoyed the fact that the D o g p a t c h predicament of helpless ineptitude was a paradigm o f the human situation, i n general. W i t h the arrival o f T V and its iconic mosaic image, the everyday life situations began t o seem v e r y square, indeed. A l Capp suddenly f o u n d that his k i n d o f distortion no longer w o r k e d . H e f e l t that Americans had lost their power to laugh at t h e m selves. H e was w r o n g . T V simply involved everybody i n everyb o d y more deeply than before. T h i s cool m e d i u m , w i t h its m a n date o f participation i n depth, required Capp t o refocus the L i ' l A b n e r image. H i s confusion and dismay were a perfect match f o r the feelings of those i n every major A m e r i c a n enterprise. F r o m Life to General M o t o r s , and f r o m the classroom t o the Executive Suite, a refocusing o f aims and images to p e r m i t ever more audience involvement and participation has been inevitable. Capp said: " B u t n o w America has changed. T h e humorist feels the change more, perhaps, than anyone. N o w there are things about America w e can't k i d . " D e p t h involvement encourages everyone t o take himself m u c h more seriously than before. As T V cooled off the A m e r i c a n audience, g i v i n g i t new preferences and new orientation of sight and sound and t o u c h and taste, A l Capp's w o n d e r f u l b r e w also had t o be toned d o w n . T h e r e was no more need t o k i d D i c k T r a c y or the suspense routines. A s MAD magazine discovered, the new audience f o u n d the scenes and themes of o r d i n a r y life as f u n n y as a n y t h i n g i n remote D o g p a t c h . MAD magazine simply transferred the w o r l d of ads i n t o the w o r l d o f the comic book, and i t d i d this just w h e n the T V image was beginning t o eliminate the comic book b y direct r i v a l r y . A t the same time, the T V image rendered the sharp and clear photographic image as b l u r and blear. T V cooled off the ad audience u n t i l the c o n t i n u i n g vehemence of the ads and entertainment suited the p r o g r a m of the MAD magazine w o r l d v e r y w e l l . T V , i n fact, t u r n e d the previous h o t media

Comics/167 o f photo, f i l m , and radio i n t o a comic-strip w o r l d b y simply feat u r i n g them as overheated packages. T o d a y the ten-year-old clutches his or her MAD ( " B u i l d u p y o u r Ego w i t h MAD") i n the same w a y that the Russian beatnik treasures an o l d Presley tape obtained f r o m a G . I . broadcast. I f the " V o i c e of A m e r i c a " suddenly switched t o jazz, the K r e m l i n w o u l d have reason t o crumble. I t w o u l d be almost as effective as i f the Russian citizens had copies of Sears Roebuck catalogues t o goggle at, instead o f our dreary propaganda f o r the American w a y o f life. Picasso has l o n g been a fan of A m e r i c a n comics. T h e h i g h b r o w , f r o m Joyce to Picasso, has l o n g been devoted t o American popular art because he finds i n i t an authentic imaginative react i o n t o official action. Genteel art, o n the other hand, tends merely t o evade and disapprove o f the blatant modes of action i n a p o w e r f u l high definition, or "square," society. Genteel art is a k i n d o f repeat o f the specialized acrobatic feats o f an industrialized w o r l d . Popular art is the c l o w n r e m i n d i n g us of all the l i f e and f a c u l t y that w e have o m i t t e d f r o m our daily routines. H e ventures t o p e r f o r m the specialized routines o f the society, acting as integral man. B u t integral man is quite inept i n a specialist situation. T h i s , at least, is one w a y t o get at the art o f the comics, and the art o f the c l o w n . T o d a y our ten-year-olds, i n v o t i n g f o r MAD, are telling us i n their o w n w a y that the T V image has ended the consumer phase o f American culture. T h e y are n o w t e l l i n g us w h a t the eighteen-year-old beatniks were first t r y i n g t o say ten years ago. T h e pictorial consumer age is dead. T h e iconic age is u p o n us. W e n o w toss to the Europeans the package that concerned us f r o m 1922 t o 1952. T h e y , i n t u r n , enter their first consumer age o f standardized goods. W e move i n t o our first depth-age of art-andproducer orientation. A m e r i c a is Europeanizing o n as extensive a pattern as Europe is Americanizing. W h e r e does this leave the older popular comics? W h a t about " B l o n d i e " and " B r i n g i n g U p Father"? Theirs was a pastoral w o r l d o f p r i m a l innocence f r o m w h i c h y o u n g America has clearly graduated. T h e r e was still adolescence i n those days, and there were

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still remote ideals and private dreams, and visualizable goals, rather than vigorous and ever-present corporate postures f o r g r o u p participation. T h e chapter o n T h e P r i n t indicated h o w the cartoon is a d o - i t yourself f o r m o f experience that has developed an ever more vigorous life as the electric age advanced. T h u s , all electric appliances, far f r o m being labor-saving devices, are new forms of w o r k , decentralized and made available to everybody. Such is, also, the w o r l d of the telephone and the T V image that demands so m u c h more o f its users than does radio or movie. As a simple consequence o f this participational and do-it-yourself aspect o f the electric technology, every k i n d of entertainment i n the T V age favors the same k i n d o f personal involvement. Hence the paradox that, i n the T V age, Johnny can't read because reading, as customarily taught, is too superficial and consumerlike an act i v i t y . Therefore the h i g h b r o w paperback, because o f its depth character, may appeal to youngsters w h o spurn o r d i n a r y narrative offerings. Teachers today f r e q u e n t l y f i n d that students w h o can't read a page of history are becoming experts i n code and linguistic analysis. T h e problem, therefore, is n o t that Johnny can't read, b u t that, i n an age of depth involvement, Johnny can't visualize distant goals. T h e first comic books appeared i n 1935, N o t having anyt h i n g connected or literary about them, and being as difficult t o decipher as the Book of Kelts, they caught on w i t h the y o u n g . T h e elders of the tribe, w h o had never noticed that the o r d i n a r y newspaper was as frantic as a surrealist art exhibition, c o u l d hardly be expected to notice that the comic books were as exotic as eighth-century illuminations. So, having noticed n o t h i n g about the form, they c o u l d discern n o t h i n g of the contents, either. T h e mayhem and violence were all t h e y noted. Therefore, w i t h naive literary logic, they waited f o r violence t o flood the w o r l d . O r , alternatively, they attributed existing crime to the comics. T h e dimmest-witted convict learned t o moan, " I t w u z comic books done this t o me." Meantime, the violence of an industrial and mechanical environment had t o be lived and given meaning and motive i n the

Comics/169 nerves and viscera o f the y o u n g . T o live and experience a n y t h i n g is t o translate its direct impact i n t o many indirect forms o f awareness. W e provided the y o u n g w i t h a shrill and raucous asphalt jungle, beside w h i c h any tropical animal jungle was as quiet and tame as a rabbit h u t c h . W e called this normal. W e paid people to keep i t at the highest p i t c h o f intensity because i t paid w e l l . W h e n the entertainment industries tried t o provide a reasonable facsimile o f the o r d i n a r y c i t y vehemence, eyebrows were raised. I t was A l Capp w h o discovered that u n t i l T V , at least, any degree of Scragg mayhem or Phogbound m o r a l i t y was accepted as f u n n y . He didn't t h i n k i t was f u n n y . H e p u t i n his strip just exactly w h a t he saw around h i m . B u t our trained incapacity t o relate one situation t o another enabled his sardonic realism t o be mistaken f o r humor. T h e more he showed the capacity o f people t o involve themselves i n hideous difficulties, along w i t h their entire inability t o t u r n a hand t o help themselves, the more t h e y giggled. "Satire," said S w i f t , "is a glass i n w h i c h w e see every countenance b u t our o w n . " T h e comic strip and the ad, then, b o t h belong to the w o r l d o f games, t o the w o r l d o f models and extensions of situations elsewhere. MAD magazine, w o r l d o f the w o o d c u t , the p r i n t , and the cartoon, b r o u g h t them together w i t h other games and models f r o m the w o r l d of entertainment. MAD is a l a n d o f newspaper mosaic o f the ad as entertainment, and entertainment as a f o r m o f madness. A b o v e all, i t is a p r i n t - and w o o d c u t - f o r m of expression and experience whose sudden appeal is a sure index of deep changes i n our culture. O u r need n o w is t o understand the f o r m a l character o f p r i n t , comic and cartoon, b o t h as challenging and changing the consumer-culture of film, photo, and press. T h e r e is no single approach to this task, and no single observation or idea that can solve so complex a problem i n changing human perception.

18 The Printed Word Architect of Nationalism

" Y o u m a y perceive, M a d a m , " said D r . Johnson w i t h a pugilistic smile, " t h a t I am w e l l - b r e d t o a degree o f needless scrup u l o s i t y . " W h a t e v e r the degree o f conf o r m i t y the D o c t o r had achieved w i t h the new stress o f his time o n white-shirted tidiness, he was quite aware o f the g r o w i n g social demand f o r visual presentability. P r i n t i n g f r o m movable types was the first mechanization o f a complex handicraft, and became the archetype o f all subsequent mechanization. F r o m Rabelais and M o r e t o M i l l and M o r r i s , the t y p o graphic explosion extended the minds and voices o f men t o reconstitute the human dialogue o n a w o r l d scale that has bridged the ages. F o r i f seen merely as a store o f i n f o r m a t i o n , o r as a new means o f speedy retrieval o f knowledge, t y p o g r a p h y ended parochialism and tribalism, psychically and socially, b o t h i n space and i n time. Indeed the first t w o centuries o f p r i n t i n g f r o m

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movable types were motivated m u c h more b y the desire t o see ancient and medieval books than b y the need t o read and w r i t e n e w ones. U n t i l 1700 m u c h more than 50 per cent of all p r i n t e d books were ancient or medieval. N o t o n l y a n t i q u i t y b u t also the M i d d l e Ages were given t o the first reading public o f the p r i n t e d w o r d . A n d the medieval texts were b y far the most popular. L i k e any other extension o f man, t y p o g r a p h y had psychic and social consequences that suddenly shifted previous boundaries and patterns o f culture. I n b r i n g i n g the ancient and medieval w o r l d s i n t o fusion—or, as some w o u l d say, confusion—the p r i n t e d book created a t h i r d w o r l d , the modern w o r l d , w h i c h n o w encounters a new electric technology or a n e w extension o f man. Electric means o f m o v i n g o f i n f o r m a t i o n are altering our t y p o graphic culture as sharply as p r i n t modified medieval manuscript and scholastic culture. Beatrice W a r d e has recently described i n Alphabet an elect r i c display of letters painted b y light. I t was a N o r m a n M c L a r e n movie advertisement o f w h i c h she asks D o you wonder that I was late for the theatre that night, when I tell you that I saw t w o club-footed Egyptian A's . . . walking off arm-in-arm w i t h the unmistakable swagger of a music-hall comedy-team? I saw base-serifs pulled together as i f by ballet shoes, so that the letters tripped off literally sur les pointes . . . after f o r t y centuries of the necessarily static Alphabet, I saw what its members could do i n the fourth dimension of Time, " f l u x , " movement. You may well say that I was electrified. N o t h i n g could be farther f r o m typographic culture w i t h its "place f o r everything and everything i n its place." M r s . W a r d e has spent her l i f e i n the study o f t y p o g r a p h y and she shows sure tact i n her startled response t o letters that are n o t p r i n t e d b y types b u t painted b y l i g h t . I t m a y be that the explosion that began w i t h phonetic letters (the "dragon's teeth" sowed b y K i n g Cadmus) w i l l reverse i n t o " i m p l o s i o n " under the impulse o f the instant speed o f electricity. T h e alphabet (and its extension i n t o t y p o g r a p h y ) made possible the spread o f the power that is knowledge, and shattered the bonds o f tribal man, thus ex-

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ploding h i m i n t o agglomeration of individuals. Electric w r i t i n g and speed pour u p o n h i m , instantaneously and continuously, the concerns of all other men. H e becomes tribal once more. T h e human f a m i l y becomes one tribe again. A n y student o f the social history of the p r i n t e d book is l i k e l y to be puzzled b y the lack o f understanding o f the psychic and social effects o f p r i n t i n g . I n five centuries explicit comment and awareness o f the effects of p r i n t o n human sensibility are v e r y scarce. B u t the same observation can be made about all the extensions o f man, whether i t be c l o t h i n g or the computer. A n extension appears t o be an amplification of an organ, a sense or a f u n c t i o n , that inspires the central nervous system t o a self-protective gesture o f n u m b i n g of the extended area, at least so far as direct inspection and awareness are concerned. I n d i r e c t comment o n the effects o f the p r i n t e d book is available i n abundance i n the w o r k of Rabelais, Cervantes, Montaigne, S w i f t , Pope, and Joyce. T h e y used t y p o g r a p h y to create n e w art forms. Psychically the p r i n t e d book, an extension o f the visual f a c u l t y , intensified perspective and the fixed p o i n t o f v i e w . A s sociated w i t h the visual stress o n p o i n t o f v i e w and the vanishing point that provides the illusion o f perspective there comes another illusion that space is visual, u n i f o r m and continuous. T h e linearity precision and u n i f o r m i t y of the arrangement of movable types are inseparable f r o m these great cultural forms and innovations o f Renaissance experience. T h e n e w intensity of visual stress and private p o i n t o f v i e w i n the first century o f p r i n t i n g were united t o the means o f self-expression made possible b y the typographic extension o f man. Socially, the typographic extension o f man b r o u g h t i n nationalism, industrialism, mass markets, and universal literacy and education. For p r i n t presented an image o f repeatable precision that inspired t o t a l l y new forms o f extending social energies. P r i n t released great psychic and social energies i n the Renaissance, as today i n Japan or Russia, b y breaking the individual out of the traditional g r o u p w h i l e p r o v i d i n g a model of h o w t o add i n d i v i d ual t o individual i n massive agglomeration of p o w e r . T h e same spirit o f private enterprise that emboldened authors and artists

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to cultivate self-expression led other men t o create giant corpora-* tions, b o t h m i l i t a r y and commercial. Perhaps the most significant o f the gifts o f t y p o g r a p h y to man is that of detachment and noninvolvement—the p o w e r to act w i t h o u t reacting. Science since the Renaissance has exalted this g i f t w h i c h has become an embarrassment i n the electric age, i n w h i c h all people are involved i n all others at all times. T h e v e r y w o r d "disinterested," expressing the loftiest detachment and ethical i n t e g r i t y o f typographic man, has i n the past decade been increasi n g l y used t o mean: " H e couldn't care less." T h e same i n t e g r i t y indicated b y the t e r m "disinterested" as a m a r k o f the scientific and scholarly temper o f a literate and enlightened society is n o w increasingly repudiated as "specialization" and fragmentation o f knowledge and sensibility. T h e fragmenting and analytic p o w e r o f the p r i n t e d w o r d i n our psychic lives gave us that "dissociation o f sensibility" w h i c h i n the arts and literature since Cezanne and since Baudelaire has been a t o p p r i o r i t y f o r elimination i n every p r o g r a m o f r e f o r m i n taste and knowledge. I n the " i m p l o s i o n " o f the electric age the separation of t h o u g h t and feeling has come t o seem as strange as the departmentalization of knowledge i n schools and universities. Y e t i t was precisely the power to separate t h o u g h t and feeling, t o be able t o act w i t h o u t reacting, that split literate man out o f the tribal w o r l d o f close f a m i l y bonds i n private and and social life. T y p o g r a p h y was no more an addition to the scribal art than the motorcar was an addition t o the horse. P r i n t i n g had its "horseless carriage" phase o f being misconceived and misapplied d u r i n g its first decades, w h e n i t was n o t u n c o m m o n f o r the purchaser o f a p r i n t e d book t o take i t t o a scribe t o have i t copied and i l lustrated. Even i n the early eighteenth c e n t u r y a " t e x t b o o k " was still defined as a "Classick A u t h o r w r i t t e n v e r y w i d e b y the Students, t o give r o o m f o r an Interpretation dictated b y the Master, & c , to be inserted i n the Interlines" ( O . E . D . ) . Before p r i n t i n g , m u c h of the time i n school and college classrooms was spent i n making such texts. T h e classroom tended to be a scriptorium w i t h a commentary. T h e student was an editor-publisher. B y the same token the b o o k market was a secondhand market o f

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relatively scarce items. P r i n t i n g changed learning and marketing processes alike. T h e book was the first teaching machine and also the first mass-produced c o m m o d i t y . I n a m p l i f y i n g and extending the w r i t t e n w o r d , t y p o g r a p h y revealed and greatly extended the structure o f w r i t i n g . T o d a y , w i t h the cinema and the electric speed-up o f i n f o r m a t i o n movement, the f o r m a l structure o f the p r i n t e d w o r d , as of mechanism i n general, stands f o r t h like a branch washed u p o n the beach. A n e w m e d i u m is never an addition to an o l d one, nor does i t leave the o l d one i n peace. I t never ceases t o oppress the older media u n t i l i t finds new shapes and positions f o r them. Manuscript culture had sustained an oral procedure i n education that was called "scholasticism" at its higher levels; b u t b y p u t t i n g the same text i n f r o n t of any given number o f students o r readers p r i n t ended the scholastic regime o f oral disputation v e r y q u i c k l y . P r i n t p r o v i d e d a vast n e w m e m o r y f o r past w r i t i n g s that made a personal m e m o r y inadequate. Margaret Mead has reported that w h e n she b r o u g h t several copies o f the same book t o a Pacific island there was great excitement. T h e natives had seen books, b u t o n l y one c o p y o f each, w h i c h they had assumed t o be unique. T h e i r astonishment at the identical character o f several books was a natural response t o w h a t is after all the most magical and potent aspect o f p r i n t and mass p r o d u c t i o n . I t involves a principle o f extension b y homogenization that is the k e y t o understanding W e s t e r n power. T h e open society is open b y v i r t u e o f a u n i f o r m typographic educational processing that permits indefinite expansion o f any group b y additive means. T h e p r i n t e d book based o n typographic u n i f o r m i t y and repeatability i n the visual order was the first teaching machine, just as t y p o g r a p h y was the first mechanization o f a handicraft. Y e t i n spite o f the extreme fragmentation or specialization o f human action necessary t o achieve the p r i n t e d w o r d , the p r i n t e d book represents a r i c h composite o f previous cultural inventions. T h e total e f f o r t embodied i n the illustrated book i n p r i n t offers a striking example o f the variety o f separate acts o f invention that are requisite t o b r i n g about a n e w technological result.

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T h e psychic and social consequences o f p r i n t included an extension of its fissile and u n i f o r m character t o the gradual homogenization o f diverse regions w i t h the resulting amplificat i o n o f power, energy, and aggression that w e associate w i t h n e w nationalisms. Psychically, the visual extension and amplification o f the individual b y p r i n t had many effects. Perhaps as s t r i k i n g as any other is the one mentioned b y M r . E. M . Forster, w h o , w h e n discussing some Renaissance types, suggested that " t h e p r i n t i n g press, then o n l y a century o l d , had been mistaken f o r an engine o f i m m o r t a l i t y , and men had hastened t o c o m m i t t o i t deeds and passions f o r the benefit of f u t u r e ages." People began t o act as though i m m o r t a l i t y were inherent i n the magic repeata b i l i t y and extensions o f p r i n t . A n o t h e r significant aspect of the u n i f o r m i t y and repeatability o f the printed page was the pressure i t exerted t o w a r d " c o r r e c t " spelling, syntax, and pronunciation. Even more notable were the effects o f p r i n t i n separating p o e t r y f r o m song, and prose f r o m o r a t o r y , and popular f r o m educated speech. I n the matter o f p o e t r y i t t u r n e d out that, as p o e t r y could be read w i t h o u t being heard, musical instruments c o u l d also be played w i t h o u t accompanying any verses. Music veered f r o m the spoken w o r d , t o converge again w i t h Bartok and Schoenberg. W i t h t y p o g r a p h y the process o f separation ( o r explosion) o f functions w e n t o n s w i f t l y at all levels and i n all spheres; n o where was this matter observed and commented o n w i t h m o r e bitterness than i n the plays o f Shakespeare. Especially i n King hear, Shakespeare p r o v i d e d an image or model of the process o f quantification and fragmentation as i t entered the w o r l d o f politics and o f f a m i l y life. Lear at the v e r y opening o f the play presents " o u r darker purpose" as a plan of delegation o f powers and duties: Only we shall retain The name, and all t h ' addition to a K i n g ; The sway, revenue, execution of the rest, Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm, This coronet part between you. T h i s act of fragmentation and delegation blasts Lear, his k i n g d o m , and his f a m i l y . Y e t t o divide and rule was the dominant

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new idea o f the organization o f power i n the Renaissance. " O u r darker purpose" refers t o Machiavelli himself, w h o had developed an individualist and quantitative idea of power that struck more fear i n that time than M a r x i n ours. P r i n t , then, challenged the corporate patterns of medieval organization as m u c h as electricity n o w challenges our fragmented individualism. T h e u n i f o r m i t y and repeatability of p r i n t permeated the Renaissance w i t h the idea of time and space as continuous measurable quantities. T h e immediate effect o f this idea was t o desacralize the w o r l d o f nature and the w o r l d o f power alike. T h e n e w technique of c o n t r o l o f physical processes b y segmentation and f r a g mentation separated G o d and N a t u r e as m u c h as M a n and N a t u r e , or man and man. Shock at this departure f r o m traditional vision and inclusive awareness was often directed t o w a r d the figure of Machiavelli, w h o had merely spelled o u t the n e w quantitative and neutral or scientific ideas of force as applied t o the manipulat i o n of kingdoms. Shakespeare's entire w o r k is taken up w i t h the themes of the new delimitations of power, b o t h k i n g l y and private. N o greater h o r r o r could be imagined i n his time than the spectacle o f Richard I I , the sacral k i n g , undergoing the indignities of imprisonment and denudation of his sacred prerogatives. I t is i n Troilus and Cressida, however, that the new cults o f fissile, irresponsible power, public and private, are paraded as a cynical charade o f atomistic competition^ Take the instant way; For honour travels i n a strait so narrow Where one but goes abreast: keep, then, the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons That one by one pursue: i f you give way, O r hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an enter'd tide they all rush by A n d leave you hindmost . . . (HI, iii) T h e image of society as segmented i n t o a homogeneous mass of quantified appetites shadows Shakespeare's vision i n the later plays. O f the many unforeseen consequences of t y p o g r a p h y , the

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emergence of nationalism is, perhaps, the most familiar. Political unification of populations b y means of vernacular and language groupings was unthinkable before p r i n t i n g turned each vernacular i n t o an extensive mass m e d i u m . T h e tribe, an extended f o r m o f a f a m i l y of blood relatives, is exploded b y p r i n t , and is replaced b y an association o f men homogeneously trained to be individuals. Nationalism itself came as an intense n e w visual image o f group destiny and status, and depended on a speed o f i n f o r m a t i o n movement u n k n o w n before p r i n t i n g . T o d a y nationalism as an image still depends on the press b u t has all the electric media against i t . I n business, as i n politics, the effect of even jet-plane speeds is t o render the older national groupings of social organization quite unworkable. I n the Renaissance i t was the speed of p r i n t and the ensuing market and commercial developments that made nationalism ( w h i c h is c o n t i n u i t y and competition i n homogeneous space) as natural as i t was new. B y the same token, the heterogeneities and noncompetitive discontinuities of medieval guilds and f a m i l y organization had become a great nuisance as speed-up o f i n f o r m a t i o n b y p r i n t called f o r more fragmentation and u n i f o r m i t y o f f u n c t i o n . T h e Benvenuto Cellinis, the goldsmith-cum-paintercum-sculptor-cum-writer-cum-condottiere, became obsolete. Once a new technology comes i n t o a social milieu i t cannot cease t o permeate that milieu u n t i l every institution is saturated. T y p o g r a p h y has permeated every phase o f the arts and sciences i n the past five hundred years. I t w o u l d be easy to document the processes b y w h i c h the principles of c o n t i n u i t y , u n i f o r m i t y , and repeatability have become the basis o f calculus and of marketing, as o f industrial p r o d u c t i o n , entertainment, and science. I t w i l l be enough t o point out that repeatability conferred o n the p r i n t e d b o o k the strangely novel character o f a u n i f o r m l y priced c o m m o d i t y opening the door t o price systems. T h e printed book had i n addition the q u a l i t y o f p o r t a b i l i t y and accessibility that had been lacking i n the manuscript. D i r e c t l y associated w i t h these expansive qualities was the r e v o l u t i o n i n expression. U n d e r manuscript conditions the role o f being an author was a vague and uncertain one, like that of a minstrel. Hence, self-expression was o f little interest. T y p o g r a p h y ,

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however, created a m e d i u m i n w h i c h i t was possible t o speak o u t l o u d and b o l d t o the w o r l d itself, just as i t was possible to c i r cumnavigate the w o r l d o f books previously locked u p i n a pluralistic w o r l d of monastic cells. Boldness o f t y p e created boldness o f expression. U n i f o r m i t y reached also i n t o areas o f speech and w r i t i n g , leading t o a single tone and attitude t o reader and subject spread t h r o u g h o u t an entire composition. T h e " m a n of letters" was b o r n . Extended to the spoken w o r d , this literate equitone enabled literate people to maintain a single " h i g h t o n e " i n discourse that was quite devastating, and enabled nineteenth-century prose writers t o assume m o r a l qualities that f e w w o u l d n o w care t o simulate. Permeation o f the colloquial language w i t h literate u n i f o r m qualities has flattened o u t educated speech t i l l i t is a v e r y reasonable acoustic facsimile o f the u n i f o r m and continuous visual effects of t y p o g r a p h y . F r o m this technological effect f o l l o w s the f u r t h e r fact that the h u m o r , slang, and dramatic v i g o r o f A m e r i c a n English speech are monopolies o f the semi-literate. These typographical matters f o r m a n y people are charged w i t h controversial values. Y e t i n any approach t o understanding p r i n t i t is necessary t o stand aside f r o m the f o r m i n question i f its t y p i c a l pressure and life are t o be observed. Those w h o panic n o w about the threat o f the newer media and about the revolut i o n w e are f o r g i n g , vaster i n scope than that o f Gutenberg, are obviously lacking i n cool visual detachment and gratitude f o r that most potent g i f t bestowed on W e s t e r n man b y literacy and t y p o g r a p h y : his p o w e r t o act w i t h o u t reaction or involvement. I t is this k i n d o f specialization b y dissociation that has created W e s t e r n p o w e r and efficiency. W i t h o u t this dissociation o f action f r o m feeling and emotion people are hampered and hesitant. P r i n t taught men t o say, " D a m n the torpedoes. F u l l steam ahead!"

19 Wheel, Bicycle, and Airplane

T h e kinds of interplay between wheel, bicycle, and airplane are startling t o those w h o have never t h o u g h t about them. Scholars tend t o w o r k o n the archeological assumption that things need t o be studied i n isolation. T h i s is the habit o f specialism that quite naturally derives f r o m t y p o graphic culture. W h e n a scholar like L y n n W h i t e ventures t o make some interrelations, even i n his o w n area o f special historical study, he causes a good deal o f u n happiness among his merely specialist c o l leagues. I n his Medieval Technology and Social Change he explains h o w the feudal system was a social extension of the stirr u p . T h e stirrup first appeared i n the W e s t i n the eighth c e n t u r y A . D . , having been introduced f r o m the East. W i t h the stirrup came mounted shock combat that called i n t o existence a n e w social class. T h e European cavalier class had already existed t o be armed, b u t t o m o u n t a k n i g h t i n f u l l armor required the combined resources

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of ten or more peasant holdings. Charlemagne demanded that less prosperous freemen merge their private farms to equip a single k n i g h t f o r the wars. T h e pressure o f the new w a r technology gradually developed classes and an economic system that could provide numerous cavaliers i n heavy armor. B y about the year 1000 A . D . the o l d w o r d miles had changed f r o m "soldier" t o "knight." L y n n W h i t e has m u c h t o say, also, about horseshoes and horsecollars as revolutionary technology that increased the power and extended the range and speed o f human action i n the early M i d d l e Ages. H e is sensitive to the psychic and social implications o f each technological extension o f man, showing h o w the heavy wheel-plow b r o u g h t about a new order i n the field system, as w e l l as i n the diet of that age. " T h e M i d d l e Ages were literally f u l l o f beans." T o come more d i r e c t l y t o our subject o f the wheel, L y n n W h i t e explains h o w the evolution o f the wheel i n the M i d d l e Ages was related t o the development of the horsecollar and the harness. T h e greater speed and endurance o f the horse was n o t available f o r cartage u n t i l the discovery o f the collar. B u t once evolved, this horse-harness led to the development of wagons w i t h pivoted f r o n t axles and brakes. T h e f o u r - w h e e l w a g o n capable o f hauling heavy loads was a c o m m o n feature b y the middle of the thirteenth century. T h e effects o n t o w n life were extraordinary. Peasants began t o live i n cities w h i l e going each day to their fields, almost i n the manner o f motorized Saskatchewan farmers. These latter live mainly i n the c i t y , having no housing i n the c o u n t r y beyond sheds f o r their tractors and equipment. W i t h the c o m i n g of the horse-drawn bus and streetcar, American t o w n s developed housing that was no longer w i t h i n sight of shop or f a c t o r y . T h e railroad next t o o k over the development of the suburbs, w i t h housing kept w i t h i n w a l k i n g distance o f the railroad stop. Shops and hotels around the railroad gave some concentration and f o r m t o the suburb. T h e automobile, f o l l o w e d b y the airplane, dissolved this g r o u p i n g and ended the pedestrian, or human, scale of the suburb. Lewis M u m f o r d contends that the car turned the suburban housewife i n t o a f u l l - t i m e

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chauffeur. Certainly the transformations o f the wheel as expediter o f tasks, and architect of ever-new human relations, is far f r o m finished, b u t its shaping p o w e r is w a n i n g i n the electric age o f i n f o r m a t i o n , and that fact makes us m u c h more aware of its characteristic f o r m as n o w tending t o w a r d the archaic. Before the emergence of the wheeled vehicle, there was merely the abrasive t r a c t i o n principle—runners, skids, and skis preceded wheels f o r vehicles, just as the abrasive, semirotary m o t i o n o f the hand-operated spindle and d r i l l preceded the f u l l , free r o t a r y m o t i o n o f the potter's wheel. T h e r e is a moment o f translation or "abstraction" needed to separate the reciprocating movement of hand f r o m the free movement o f wheel. "Doubtless the n o t i o n of the wheel came originally f r o m observing that r o l l i n g a l o g was easier than shoving i t , " writes Lewis M u m f o r d i n Technics and Civilization. Some m i g h t object that l o g - r o l l i n g is closer t o the spindle operation of the hands than t o the r o t a r y movement of feet, and need never have g o t translated i n t o the technology of wheel. U n d e r stress, i t is m o r e natural t o fragment our o w n b o d i l y f o r m , and t o let part of i t go i n t o another material, than i t is t o transfer any o f the motions of external objects i n t o another material. T o extend our b o d i l y postures and motions i n t o n e w materials, b y w a y o f amplification, is a constant drive f o r more power. Most o f our b o d i l y stresses are interpreted as needs f o r extending storage and m o b i l i t y functions, such as occur, also, i n speech, money, and w r i t i n g . A l l manner of utensils are a y i e l d i n g t o this b o d i l y stress b y means of extensions of the b o d y . T h e need f o r storage and p o r t a b i l i t y can readily be noted i n vases, jars, and "slow matches" (stored fire). Perhaps the main feature of all tools and machines—economy o f gesture—is the immediate expression o f any physical pressure w h i c h impels us to outer o r t o extend ourselves, whether i n w o r d s or i n wheels. M a n can say i t w i t h flowers or plows or l o c o m o tives. I n " K r a z y K a t , " Ignatz said i t w i t h bricks. One of the most advanced and complicated uses of the wheel occurs i n the movie camera and i n the movie projector. I t is significant that this most subtle and complex g r o u p i n g of wheels should have been invented i n order to w i n a bet that all f o u r feet o f

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a r u n n i n g horse were sometimes o f f the g r o u n d simultaneously. T h i s bet was made between the pioneer photographer E d w a r d M u y b r i d g e and horse-owner Leland Stanford, i n 1889. A t first, a series o f cameras were set up side b y side, each t o snap an arrested moment o f the horse's hooves i n action. T h e movie camera and the projector were evolved f r o m the idea o f reconstructing mechanically the movement o f feet. T h e wheel, that began as extended feet, t o o k a great evolutionary step i n t o the movie theater. B y an enormous speed-up o f assembly-line segments, the movie camera rolls u p the real w o r l d o n a spool, t o be unrolled and translated later onto the screen. T h a t the movie re-creates organic process and movement b y pushing the mechanical p r i n ciple to the p o i n t of reversal is a pattern that appears i n all human extensions, whatever, as they reach a peak of performance. B y speed-up, the airplane rolls u p the h i g h w a y into itself. T h e road disappears into the plane at take-off, and the plane becomes a missile, a self-contained transportation system. A t this p o i n t the wheel is reabsorbed into the f o r m o f b i r d or fish that the plane becomes as i t takes t o the air. Skin-divers need no path o r road, and claim that their m o t i o n is like that o f b i r d flight; their feet cease to exist as the progressive, sequential movement that is the o r i g i n of r o t a r y action o f the wheel. U n l i k e w i n g or f i n , the wheel is lineal and requires road f o r its completion. I t was the tandem alignment of wheels that created the velocipede and then the bicycle, f o r w i t h the acceleration of wheel b y linkage t o the visual principle o f mobile lineality, the wheel acquired a n e w degree o f intensity. T h e bicycle l i f t e d the wheel onto the plane of aerodynamic balance, and n o t too i n directly created the airplane. I t was no accident that the W r i g h t brothers were bicycle mechanics, or that early airplanes seemed i n some ways like bicycles. T h e transformations o f technology have the character o f organic evolution because all technologies are extensions o f our physical being. Samuel Butler raised great admiration i n Bernard Shaw b y his insight that the evolutionary process had been fantastically accelerated b y transference t o the machine mode. Shaw, however, was happy t o leave the matter

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in this d e l i g h t f u l l y opaque state. Butler, himself, had at least i n dicated that machines w e r e given vicarious powers o f reproduction b y their subsequent impact u p o n the v e r y bodies that had b r o u g h t t h e m i n t o being b y extension. Response t o the increased p o w e r and speed o f our o w n extended bodies is one w h i c h engenders n e w extensions. E v e r y technology creates n e w stresses and needs i n the humlan beings w h o have engendered i t . T h e n e w need and the n e w technological response are b o r n o f our embrace o f the already existing technology—a ceaseless process. Those familiar w i t h the novels and plays o f Samuel Beckett need n o t be reminded o f the r i c h c l o w n i n g he engenders b y means o f the bicycle. I t is f o r h i m the prime s y m b o l o f the Cartesian m i n d i n its acrobatic relation o f m i n d and b o d y i n precarious i m balance. T h i s plight goes w i t h a lineal progression that mimics the v e r y f o r m o f purposeful and resourceful independence o f action. F o r Beckett, the integral being is n o t the acrobat b u t the c l o w n . T h e acrobat acts as a specialist, using o n l y a l i m i t e d segment o f his faculties. T h e c l o w n is the integral man w h o mimes the acrobat i n an elaborate drama o f incompetence. Beckett sees the b i c y c l e as the sign and s y m b o l o f specialist f u t i l i t y i n the present electric age, w h e n w e must all interact and react, using all o f our faculties at once. H u m p t y - D u m p t y is the familiar example o f the c l o w n u n successfully i m i t a t i n g the acrobat. Just because all the King's horses and all the K i n g ' s men couldn't p u t H u m p t y - D u m p t y together again, i t doesn't f o l l o w that electromagnetic automation c o u l d n ' t have p u t H u m p t y - D u m p t y back together. T h e integral and unified egg had no business sitting o n a w a l l , a n y w a y . W a l l s are made o f u n i f o r m l y fragmented bricks that arise w i t h specialisms and bureaucracies. T h e y are the deadly enemies o f integral beings like eggs. H u m p t y - D u m p t y met the challenge o f the w a l l w i t h a spectacular collapse. T h e same nursery r h y m e comments o n the consequences o f the f a l l o f H u m p t y - D u m p t y . T h a t is the p o i n t about the King's horses and men. T h e y , t o o , are fragmented and specialized. H a v i n g n o unified vision o f the w h o l e , t h e y are helpless. H u m p t y D u m p t y is an obvious example o f integral wholeness. T h e mere

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existence o f the w a l l already spelt his fall. James Joyce i n Fin¬ negans Wake never ceases t o interlace these themes, and the title o f the w o r k indicates his awareness that "a-stone-aging" as i t may be, the electric age is recovering the u n i t y of plastic and iconic space, and is p u t t i n g H u m p t y - D u m p t y back together again. T h e potter's wheel, like all other technologies, was the acceleration o f an existing process. A f t e r nomad food-gathering had shifted to sedentary p l o w i n g and seeding, the need f o r storage increased. Pots were needed f o r m o r e and more purposes. M e n turned their powers t o changing the forms of things b y cultivat i o n . Change t o special p r o d u c t i o n i n local areas created the need f o r exchange and f o r transport. F o r this purpose sledges were used i n N o r t h e r n Europe before 5000 B . C . , and human porters and packbearing animals preceded sledges naturally. T h e wheel under the sledge was an accelerator of feet, n o t o f hand. W i t h this accelerat i o n of the feet came the need f o r road, just as w i t h the extension of our backsides i n the f o r m o f chair, came the need f o r table. T h e wheel is an ablative absolute of feet, as chair is the ablative absolute of backside. B u t w h e n such ablatives intrude, t h e y alter the syntax o f society. T h e r e is no ceteris paribus i n the w o r l d o f media and technology. E v e r y extension or acceleration effects n e w configurations i n the over-all situation at once. T h e wheel made the road, and moved produce faster f r o m fields to settlements. Acceleration created larger and larger centers, more and more specialism, and more intense incentives, aggregates, and aggressions. So i t is that the wheeled vehicle makes its appearance at once as a w a r chariot, just as the urban center, created b y the wheel, makes its appearance as an aggressive stronghold. N o f u r t h e r m o t i v a t i o n than the c o m p o u n d i n g and consolidating o f specialist skills b y acceleration o f the wheel is needed to explain the m o u n t i n g degree o f human creativity and destructiveness. Lewis M u m f o r d calls this urbanization " i m p l o s i o n , " b u t i t was really an explosion. Cities w e r e made b y the fragmenting o f pastoral modes. T h e wheel and the road expressed and advanced this explosion b y a radiational or center-margin pattern. Centralism depends on margins that are accessible b y road and wheel.

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M a r i t i m e power does n o t assume this center-margin structure, and neither do desert and steppe cultures. T o d a y w i t h jet and electricity, urban centralism and specialism reverse i n t o decentralism and interplay o f social functions i n ever more nonspecialist forms. T h e wheel and the road are centralizers because t h e y accelerate u p to a p o i n t that ships cannot. B u t acceleration beyond a certain point, w h e n i t occurs b y means o f the automobile and the plane, creates decentralism i n the midst o f the older centralism. T h i s is the origin o f the urban chaos o f our time. T h e wheel, pushed beyond a certain intensity of movement, no longer centralizes. A l l electric forms whatsoever have a decentralizing effect, c u t t i n g across the older mechanical patterns like a bagpipe i n a symphony. I t is too bad that M r . M u m f o r d has chosen the t e r m " i m p l o s i o n " f o r the urban specialist explosion. " I m p l o s i o n " belongs t o the electronic age, as i t belonged t o the prehistoric cultures. A l l p r i m i t i v e societies are implosive, like the spoken w o r d . B u t "technology is explicitness," as L y m a n Bryson has said; and explicitness, or specialist extension o f functions, is centralism and explosion of functions, and not implosion, contraction or simultaneity. A n airline executive w h o is m u c h aware of the implosive character o f w o r l d aviation asked a corresponding executive of each airline i n the w o r l d t o send h i m a pebble f r o m outside his office. H i s idea was t o b u i l d a little cairn o f pebbles f r o m all parts o f the w o r l d . W h e n asked, "So w h a t ? " he said that i n one spot one could t o u c h every part o f the w o r l d because o f aviation. I n effect, he had h i t u p o n the mosaic or iconic principle o f simultaneous t o u c h and interplay that is inherent i n the implosive speed o f the airplane. T h e same principle o f implosive mosaic is even more characteristic o f electric i n f o r m a t i o n movement of all kinds. Centralism and extension of power b y wheel and w r i t t e n w o r d t o the margins o f empire are creative o f the direct force, outside and external, t o w h i c h men do n o t necessarily submit their minds. B u t implosion is the spell and incantation o f the tribe and the f a m i l y , to w h i c h men readily submit. U n d e r technological

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explicitness, even o f the urban centralist structure, some men managed t o break o u t o f the charmed circle of tribal magic. M u m f o r d cites the w o r d s of the Chinese philosopher Mencius as a comment o n this situation: W h e n men are subdued by force they do not submit in their minds, but only because their strength is inadequate. W h e n men are subdued by power i n personality they are pleased to their very heart's core and do really submit. A s the expression o f n e w specialist extensions o f our bodies the congregating o f people and supplies i n centers b y wheel and road called f o r endless reciprocal expansion i n a spongelike action of intake and o u t p u t , w h i c h has entrapped all u r b a n structures everywhere i n place and time. M u m f o r d observes: " I f I interpret the evidence correctly, the cooperative forms o f urban p o l i t y were undermined and vitiated f r o m the outset b y the destructive death-oriented m y t h s w h i c h attended . . . the exorbitant expansion o f physical p o w e r and technological adroitness." T o have such p o w e r b y extension o f their o w n bodies, men must explode the inner u n i t y o f their beings i n t o explicit fragments. T o d a y , i n an age o f implosion, w e are p l a y i n g the ancient explosion backward, as o n a f i l m . W e can w a t c h the pieces o f man's being c o m i n g together again i n an age that has so m u c h p o w e r that the all-destructive use o f i t appears meaningless, even t o the d i m and skew o f w i t . Historians see the forms o f the great cities i n the ancient w o r l d as manifesting all facets o f human personality. Institutions, architectural and administrative, as extensions o f o u r physical beings necessarily tend t o w a r d w o r l d - w i d e similarities. T h e cent r a l nervous system o f the c i t y was the citadel w h i c h included the great temple and palace o f the k i n g , invested w i t h the dimensions and iconography o f p o w e r and prestige. T h e extent t o w h i c h this central core c o u l d extend its p o w e r safely depended o n its p o w e r o f acting at a distance. N o t u n t i l the alphabet appeared, together w i t h papyrus, c o u l d the citadel extend itself v e r y far i n space. (See the chapter o n Roads and Paper Routes.) T h e ancient c i t y , however, c o u l d appear as q u i c k l y as specialist man c o u l d separate

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his inner functions i n space and architecture. T o say that the cities o f the Aztecs and the Peruvians resembled European cities is o n l y t o say that t h e y shared and extended the same faculties i n b o t h regions. T h e question o f direct physical influence and i m i t a t i o n as i f b y diffusion becomes irrelevant.

20 The Photograph The Brothelvoithout-Walls

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A photograph o f "St. Peter's at a M o m e n t of H i s t o r y " was the cover feature o f Life magazine f o r June 14, 1963. I t is one of the peculiar characteristics o f the photo that i t isolates single moments i n time. T h e T V camera does not. T h e continuous scanning action o f the T V camera provides, n o t the isolated moment or aspect, b u t the contour, the iconic profile and the transparency. E g y p t i a n art, like p r i m i t i v e sculpture today, provided the significant outline that had n o t h i n g t o do w i t h a moment i n time. Sculpture tends t o w a r d the timeless. Awareness o f the transforming power o f the photo is o f t e n embodied i n popular stories like the one about the admiring friend w h o said, " M y , that's a fine child y o u have t h e r e ! " M o t h e r : " O h , that's nothing. Y o u should see his photograph." T h e power o f the camera t o be everywhere and t o interrelate things is w e l l i n dicated i n the Vogue magazine boast

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( M a r c h 15, 1953): " A w o m a n n o w , and w i t h o u t having t o leave the c o u n t r y , can have the best o f five ( o r more) nations hanging i n her closet—beautiful and compatible as a statesman's dream." T h a t is w h y , i n the photographic age, fashions have come to be like the collage style i n painting. A century ago the British craze f o r the monocle gave to the wearer the power o f the camera t o fix people i n a superior stare, as i f t h e y were objects. E r i c v o n Stroheim d i d a great job w i t h the monocle i n creating the haughty Prussian officer. B o t h monocle and camera tend t o t u r n people i n t o things, and the photograph extends and multiplies the human image t o the proportions o f mass-produced merchandise. T h e movie stars and matinee idols are p u t i n the public domain b y photography. T h e y become dreams that money can b u y . T h e y can be b o u g h t and hugged and thumbed more easily than public prostitutes. Mass-produced merchandise has always made some people uneasy i n its prostitute aspect. Jean Genet's The Balcony is a play o n this theme o f society as a brothel environed b y violence and h o r r o r . T h e avid desire o f mankind t o prostitute itself stands u p against the chaos o f revolution. T h e brothel remains firm and permanent amidst the most furious changes. I n a w o r d , photography has inspired Genet w i t h the theme o f the w o r l d since photography as a B r o t h e l without-Walls. N o b o d y can c o m m i t photography alone. I t is possible t o have at least the illusion of reading and w r i t i n g i n isolation, b u t p h o t o g r a p h y does n o t foster such attitudes. I f there is any sense i n deploring the g r o w t h o f corporate and collective art forms such as the film and the press, i t is surely i n relation t o the previous individualist technologies that these new forms corrode. Yet i f there had been no prints o r woodcuts and engravings, there w o u l d never have come the photograph. For centuries, the w o o d c u t and the engraving had delineated the w o r l d b y an arrangement o f lines and points that had syntax of a v e r y elaborate k i n d . M a n y historians o f this visual syntax, like E. H . G o m b r i c h and W i l l i a m M . Ivins, have been at great pains t o explain h o w the art of the h a n d - w r i t t e n manuscript had permeated the art of the w o o d c u t and the engraving u n t i l , w i t h the halftone process, the dots and

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lines suddenly fell below the threshold o f normal vision. Syntax, the net o f rationality, disappeared f r o m the later prints, just as i t tended t o disappear f r o m the telegraph message and f r o m the impressionist painting. Finally, i n the pointillisme o f Seurat, the w o r l d suddenly appeared through the painting. T h e direction o f a syntactical p o i n t o f v i e w f r o m outside onto the painting ended as literary f o r m d w i n d l e d into headlines w i t h the telegraph. W i t h the photograph, i n the same w a y , men had discovered h o w t o make visual reports w i t h o u t syntax. I t was i n 1839 that W i l l i a m H e n r y Fox T a l b o t read a paper t o the R o y a l Society w h i c h had as t i t l e : "Some account o f the A r t of Photogenic D r a w i n g , or the process b y w h i c h N a t u r a l Objects may be made t o delineate themselves w i t h o u t the aid o f the artist's pencil." H e was quite aware of photography as a k i n d o f automat i o n that eliminated the syntactical procedures o f pen and pencil. H e was probably less aware that he had b r o u g h t the pictorial w o r l d i n t o line w i t h the n e w industrial procedures. F o r p h o t o g raphy m i r r o r e d the external w o r l d automatically, y i e l d i n g an exactly repeatable visual image. I t was this all-important q u a l i t y o f u n i f o r m i t y and repeatability that had made the Gutenberg break between the M i d d l e Ages and the Renaissance. Photography was almost as decisive i n m a k i n g the break between mere mechanical industrialism and the graphic age of electronic man. T h e step f r o m the age o f T y p o g r a p h i c M a n t o the age o f Graphic M a n was taken w i t h the i n v e n t i o n o f photography. B o t h daguerrotypes and photographs i n t r o d u c e d l i g h t and chemistry i n t o the making process. N a t u r a l objects delineated themselves b y an exposure intensified b y lens and fixed b y chemicals. I n the daguerreotype process there was the same stippling or p i t t i n g w i t h minute dots that was echoed later i n Seurat's pointillisme, and is still continued i n the newspaper mesh o f dots that is called " w i r e p h o t o . " W i t h i n a year o f Daguerre's discovery, Samuel F. B. Morse was t a k i n g photographs o f his w i f e and daughter i n N e w Y o r k C i t y . Dots f o r the eye (photograph) and dots f o r the ear (telegraph) thus met o n t o p o f a skyscraper. A f u r t h e r cross-fertilization occurred i n Talbot's invention of the p h o t o , w h i c h he imagined as an extension o f the camera

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obscura, or pictures i n " t h e little dark r o o m , " as the Italians had named the picture play-box o f the sixteenth century. Just at the time w h e n mechanical w r i t i n g had been achieved b y movable types, there g r e w u p the pastime of l o o k i n g at m o v i n g images on the w a l l o f a dark r o o m . I f there is sunshine outside and a pinhole i n one w a l l , then the images o f the outer w o r l d w i l l appear o n the w a l l opposite. T h i s n e w discovery was v e r y exciting t o painters, since i t intensified the n e w illusion o f perspective and o f the t h i r d dimension that is so closely related t o the printed w o r d . B u t the early spectators o f the m o v i n g image i n the sixteenth c e n t u r y saw those images upside d o w n . For this reason the lens was i n troduced—in order t o t u r n the picture r i g h t side u p . O u r n o r m a l vision is also upside d o w n . Psychically, w e learn t o t u r n our visual w o r l d r i g h t side u p b y translating the retinal impression f r o m visual i n t o tactile and kinetic terms. R i g h t side u p is apparently something w e feel b u t cannot see d i r e c t l y . T o the student o f media, the fact that " n o r m a l " right-side-up vision is a translation f r o m one sense i n t o another is a helpful h i n t about the kinds o f a c t i v i t y o f distortion and translation that any language or culture induces i n all o f us. N o t h i n g amuses the Eskimo more than f o r the w h i t e man t o crane his neck t o see the magazine pictures stuck o n the igloo walls. F o r the Eskimo no more needs t o l o o k at a picture r i g h t side u p than does a c h i l d before he has learned his letters on a line. Just w h y Westerners should be disturbed t o f i n d that natives have t o learn t o read pictures, as w e learn t o read letters, is w o r t h consideration. T h e extreme bias and distortion o f our sense-lives b y our technology w o u l d seem t o be a fact that w e prefer t o ignore i n our daily lives. Evidence that natives do n o t perceive i n perspective or sense the t h i r d dimension seems t o threaten the W e s t e r n ego-image and structure, as many have f o u n d after a t r i p t h r o u g h the Ames Perception L a b o r a t o r y at O h i o State U n i v e r s i t y . T h i s lab is arranged to reveal the various illusions w e create f o r ourselves i n w h a t w e consider t o be " n o r m a l " visual perception. T h a t w e have accepted such bias and o b l i q u i t y i n a subliminal w a y t h r o u g h most o f human history is clear enough. Just w h y w e are no longer content t o leave our experience i n this subliminal

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state, and w h y many people have begun to get v e r y conscious about the unconscious, is a question w e l l w o r t h investigation. People are nowadays m u c h concerned t o set their houses i n order, a process o f self-consciousness that has received large impetus f r o m photography. W i l l i a m H e n r y Fox T a l b o t , delighting i n Swiss scenery, began t o reflect on the camera obscura and w r o t e that " i t was d u r i n g these thoughts that the idea occurred t o me . . . h o w charming i t w o u l d be i f i t were possible t o cause these natural images t o i m p r i n t themselves durably, and remain fixed o n paper!" T h e p r i n t i n g press had, i n the Renaissance, inspired a similar desire t o give permanence t o daily feelings and experience. T h e method T a l b o t devised was that of p r i n t i n g positives chemically f r o m negatives, to y i e l d an exactly repeatable image. T h u s the roadblock that had impeded the Greek botanists and had defeated their successors was removed. Most of the sciences had been, f r o m their origins, u t t e r l y handicapped b y the lack o f adequate nonverbal means of transmitting i n f o r m a t i o n . T o d a y , even subatomic physics w o u l d be unable t o develop w i t h o u t the photograph. T h e Sunday New York Times f o r June 15, 1958 reported: T I N Y

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Microphoretic Method Spots Million-Billionth of Gram, London Designer Says Samples of substances weighing less than a million-billionth of a gram can be analysed by a new British microscopic technique. This is the "microphoretic method" by Bernard M . Turner, a London biochemical analyst and instruments designer. I t can be applied to the study of the cells of the brain and nervous system, cell duplication including that i n cancerous tissue, and i t w i l l assist, i t is believed, i n the analyses of atmospheric pollution by dust. . . . I n effect, an electric current pulls or pushes the different constituents of the sample into zones where they would normally be invisible. H o w e v e r , t o say that "the camera cannot l i e " is merely t o underline the m u l t i p l e deceits that are n o w practiced i n its name. Indeed, the w o r l d o f the movie that was prepared b y the p h o t o -

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graph has become synonymous w i t h illusion and fantasy, t u r n i n g society i n t o w h a t Joyce called an "allnights newsery reel," that substitutes a " r e e l " w o r l d f o r reality. Joyce k n e w more about the effects o f the photograph o n our senses, our language, and our t h o u g h t processes than a n y b o d y else. H i s verdict on the " a u t o matic w r i t i n g " that is photography was the abnihilization of the etym. H e saw the photo as at least a rival, and perhaps a usurper, o f the w o r d , whether w r i t t e n or spoken. B u t i f etym ( e t y m o l o g y ) means the heart and core and moist substance o f those beings that w e grasp i n words, then Joyce may w e l l have meant that the p h o t o was a new creation f r o m n o t h i n g (ab-nihil), or even a reduction o f creation t o a photographic negative. I f there is, indeed, a terrible nihilism i n the photo and a substitution o f shadows f o r substance, then w e are surely n o t the worse f o r k n o w i n g i t . T h e technology of the photo is an extension of our o w n being and can be w i t h d r a w n f r o m circulation like any other technology i f w e decide that i t is v i r u l e n t . B u t amputation of such extensions o f our physical being calls f o r as m u c h knowledge and skill as are prerequisite t o any other physical amputation. I f the phonetic alphabet was a technical means of severing the spoken w o r d f r o m its aspects o f sound and gesture, the photograph and its development i n the movie restored gesture t o the human technology o f recording experience. I n fact, the snapshot o f arrested human postures b y photography directed more attention to physical and psychic posture than ever before. T h e age o f the photograph has become the age of gesture and mime and dance, as no other age has ever been. Freud and J u n g b u i l t their observations o n the interpretation o f the languages o f b o t h individual and collective postures and gestures w i t h respect t o dreams and t o the o r d i n a r y acts of everyday life. T h e physical and psychic gestalts, or " s t i l l " shots, w i t h w h i c h they w o r k e d were m u c h o w i n g t o the posture w o r l d revealed b y the p h o t o graph. T h e photograph is just as useful f o r collective, as f o r i n d i vidual, postures and gestures, whereas w r i t t e n and printed language is biased t o w a r d the private and individual posture. T h u s , the traditional figures o f rhetoric were individual postures o f m i n d o f the private speaker i n relation to an audience, whereas m y t h

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and Jungian archetypes are collective postures o f the m i n d w i t h w h i c h the w r i t t e n f o r m could n o t cope, any more than i t c o u l d command mime and gesture. Moreover, that the photograph is quite versatile i n revealing and arresting posture and structure wherever i t is used, occurs i n countless examples, such as the analysis o f b i r d - f l i g h t . I t was the photograph that revealed the secret o f b i r d - f l i g h t and enabled man t o take off. T h e photo, i n arresting b i r d - f l i g h t , showed that i t was based o n a principle o f w i n g fixity. W i n g movement was seen t o be f o r propulsion, n o t f o r flight. Perhaps the great revolution produced b y photograph was i n the traditional arts. T h e painter c o u l d no longer depict a w o r l d that had been m u c h photographed. H e t u r n e d , instead, t o reveal the inner process o f creativity i n expressionism and i n abstract art. Likewise, the novelist could no longer describe objects or happenings f o r readers w h o already k n e w w h a t was happening b y photo, press, f i l m , and radio. T h e poet and novelist t u r n e d t o those i n w a r d gestures o f the m i n d b y w h i c h w e achieve insight and b y w h i c h w e make ourselves and our w o r l d . T h u s art moved f r o m outer matching t o inner making. Instead o f depicting a w o r l d that matched the w o r l d w e already k n e w , the artists t u r n e d t o presenting the creative process f o r public participation. H e has given t o us n o w the means o f becoming involved i n the m a k i n g process. Each development o f the electric age attracts, and demands, a h i g h degree o f producer-orientation. T h e age o f the c o n sumer o f processed and packaged goods is, therefore, n o t the present electric age, b u t the mechanical age that preceded i t . Yet, inevitably, the age o f the mechanical has had t o overlap w i t h the electric, as i n such obvious instances as the internal combustion engine that requires the electric spark t o ignite the explosion that moves its cylinders. T h e telegraph is an electric f o r m that, w h e n crossed w i t h p r i n t and r o t a r y presses, yields the m o d e r n newspaper. A n d the photograph is n o t a machine, b u t a chemical and l i g h t process that, crossed w i t h the machine, yields the movie. Y e t there is a v i g o r and violence i n these h y b r i d forms that is self-liquidating, as i t were. For i n radio and T V — p u r e l y electric forms f r o m w h i c h the mechanical principle has been excluded—

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there is an altogether n e w relation o f the m e d i u m t o its users. T h i s is a relation of high participation and involvement that, f o r good o r i l l , no mechanism had ever evoked. Education is ideally c i v i l defense against media fall-out. Y e t W e s t e r n man has had, so far, no education o r equipment f o r meeting any of the new media o n their o w n terms. Literate man is n o t o n l y numb and vague i n the presence o f film or photo, b u t he intensifies his ineptness b y a defensive arrogance and condescension to " p o p k u l c h " and "mass entertainment." I t was i n this spirit o f b u l l d o g opacity that the scholastic philosophers failed to meet the challenge o f the p r i n t e d book i n the sixteenth century. T h e vested interests o f acquired knowledge and conventional w i s d o m have always been by-passed and engulfed b y n e w media. T h e study of this process, however, whether f o r the purpose o f fixity o r o f change, has scarcely begun. T h e n o t i o n that selfinterest confers a keener eye f o r recognizing and c o n t r o l l i n g the processes o f change is quite w i t h o u t foundation, as witness the motorcar industry. H e r e is a w o r l d o f obsolescence as surely doomed t o s w i f t erosion as was the enterprise o f the b u g g y - and wagon-makers i n 1915. Y e t does General M o t o r s , f o r example, k n o w , or even suspect, a n y t h i n g about the effect o f the T V image o n the users of motorcars? T h e magazine enterprises are similarly undermined b y the T V image and its effect o n the advertising icon. T h e meaning o f the n e w ad i c o n has n o t been grasped b y those w h o stand to lose all. T h e same is t r u e o f the movie industry i n general. Each o f these enterprises lacks any " l i t e r a c y " i n any m e d i u m b u t its o w n , and thus the startling changes resulting f r o m n e w hybrids and crossings o f media catch them unawares. T o the student o f media structures, every detail o f the total mosaic o f the contemporary w o r l d is v i v i d w i t h meaningful life. As early as M a r c h 15, 1953, Vogue magazine announced a new h y b r i d , resulting f r o m a cross between photograph and air travel: This first International Fashion Issue of Vogue is to mark a new point. W e couldn't have done such an issue before. Fashion only got its internationalization papers a short time ago, and for the first time i n one issue we can report on couture collections i n five countries.

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T h e advantages o f such ad c o p y as high-grade ore i n the lab o f the media analyst can be recognized o n l y b y those trained i n the language o f vision and o f the plastic arts i n general. T h e c o p y w r i t e r has t o be a strip-tease artist w h o has entire empathy w i t h the immediate state of m i n d o f the audience. Such, indeed, is also the aptitude o f the popular novelist or song w r i t e r . I t follows that any w i d e l y accepted w r i t e r or entertainer embodies and reveals a current set o f attitudes that can be verbalized b y the analyst. " D o y o u read me, M a c ? " B u t were the w o r d s of the Vogue w r i t e r t o be considered merely on literary or editorial grounds, their meaning w o u l d be missed, just as the c o p y i n a pictorial ad is n o t to be considered as literary statement b u t as mime of the psychopathology o f everyday life. I n the age of the photograph, language takes o n a graphic or iconic character, whose "meaning" belongs v e r y little t o the semantic universe, and n o t at all t o the republic of letters. I f w e open a 1938 c o p y of Life, the pictures or postures then seen as normal n o w give a sharper sense o f remote time than do objects o f real antiquity. Small children n o w attach the phrase "the olden days" t o yesterday's hats and overshoes, so keenly are they attuned t o the abrupt seasonal changes of visual posture i n the w o r l d o f fashions. B u t the basic experience here is one that most people feel f o r yesterday's newspaper, than w h i c h n o t h i n g could be more drastically out o f fashion. Jazz musicians express their distaste f o r recorded jazz b y saying, " I t is as stale as yesterday's newspaper." Perhaps that is the readiest w a y t o grasp the meaning of the photograph i n creating a w o r l d o f accelerated transience. F o r the relation w e have t o "today's newspaper," or verbal jazz, is the same that people feel f o r fashions. Fashion is not a w a y o f being i n f o r m e d or aware, b u t a w a y o f being with i t . T h a t , however, is merely t o d r a w attention t o a negative aspect of the photograph. Positively, the effect of speeding u p temporal sequence is t o abolish time, m u c h as the telegraph and cable abolished space. O f course the photograph does b o t h . I t wipes o u t our national f r o n tiers and cultural barriers, and involves us i n The Family of Man, regardless of any particular p o i n t o f view. A picture o f a group

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o f persons of any hue whatever is a picture o f people, not of " c o l ored people." T h a t is the logic of the photograph, politically speaking. But the logic o f the photograph is neither verbal nor syntactical, a condition w h i c h renders literary culture quite helpless t o cope w i t h the photograph. B y the same token, the complete transformation of human sense-awareness b y this f o r m involves a development o f self-consciousness that alters facial expression and cosmetic makeup as immediately as i t does our b o d i l y stance, i n public or i n private. T h i s fact can be gleaned f r o m any magazine or movie of fifteen years back. I t is n o t too m u c h t o say, therefore, that i f outer posture is affected b y the photograph, so w i t h our inner postures and the dialogue w i t h ourselves. T h e age o f Jung and Freud is, above all, the age of the photograph, the age o f the f u l l gamut of self-critical attitudes. T h i s immense t i d y i n g - u p o f our inner lives, motivated b y the n e w picture gestalt culture, has had its obvious parallels i n our attempts to rearrange our homes and gardens and our cities. T o see a photograph of the local slum makes the c o n d i t i o n unbearable. T h e mere matching o f the picture w i t h reality provides a n e w motive f o r change, as i t does a new motive f o r travel. Daniel Boorstin i n The Image: or What Happened to the American Dream offers a conducted literary t o u r o f the new photographic w o r l d o f travel. One has merely t o look at the new tourism i n a literary perspective to discover that i t makes no sense at all. T o the literary man w h o has read about Europe, i n leisurely anticipation of a visit, an ad that whispers: " Y o u are just fifteen gourmet meals f r o m Europe o n the w o r l d ' s fastest ship" is gross and repugnant. Advertisements of travel b y plane are worse: " D i n n e r i n N e w Y o r k , indigestion i n Paris." Moreover, the p h o t o graph has reversed the purpose of travel, w h i c h u n t i l n o w had been to encounter the strange and unfamiliar. Descartes, i n the early seventeenth century, had observed that traveling was almost like conversing w i t h men of other centuries, a p o i n t of v i e w quite u n k n o w n before his time. For those w h o cherish such quaint experience, i t is necessary today t o go back v e r y many centuries b y the art and archaeology route. Professor Boorstin seems u n happy that so many Americans travel so m u c h and are changed

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b y i t so little. H e feels that the entire travel experience has become " d i l u t e d , contrived, prefabricated." H e is n o t concerned t o f i n d o u t w h y the photograph has done this t o us. B u t i n the same w a y intelligent people i n the past always deplored the w a y i n w h i c h the book had become a substitute f o r i n q u i r y , conversation, and reflection, and never troubled t o reflect o n the nature of the printed book. T h e b o o k reader has always tended t o be passive, because that is the best w a y t o read. T o d a y , the traveler has become passive. G i v e n travelers checks, a passport, and a t o o t h brush, the w o r l d is y o u r oyster. T h e macadam road, the railroad, and the steamship have taken the travail o u t o f travel. People moved b y the silliest w h i m s n o w clutter the foreign places, because travel differs v e r y little f r o m going to a movie or t u r n i n g the pages of a magazine. T h e " G o N o w , Pay L a t e r " f o r m u l a of the travel agencies m i g h t as w e l l read: " G o n o w , arrive later," f o r i t could be argued that such people never really leave their beaten paths of impercipience, nor do they ever arrive at any new place. T h e y can have Shanghai or Berlin or Venice i n a package t o u r that they need never open. I n 1961, T W A began t o provide new movies f o r its trans-Atlantic flights so that y o u could visit Portugal, California, or anywhere else, w h i l e en route t o H o l l a n d , f o r example. T h u s the w o r l d itself becomes a sort of museum o f objects that have been encountered before i n some other medium. I t is w e l l k n o w n that even museum curators often prefer colored pictures to the originals of various objects i n their o w n cases. I n the same w a y , the tourist w h o arrives at the Leaning T o w e r o f Pisa, or the G r a n d Canyon o f A r i z o n a , can n o w merely check his reactions t o something w i t h w h i c h he has l o n g been familiar, and take his o w n pictures o f the same. T o lament that the packaged t o u r , like the photograph, cheapens and degrades b y m a k i n g all places easy of access, is t o miss most o f the game. I t is t o make value judgments w i t h fixed reference to the fragmentary perspective of literary culture. I t is the same position that considers a l i t e r a r y landscape as superior t o a movie travelogue. F o r the untrained awareness, all reading and all movies, like all travel, are equally banal and unnourishing as experience. D i f f i c u l t y of access does n o t confer adequacy o f

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perception, t h o u g h i t m a y involve an object i n an aura of pseudovalues, as w i t h a gem, a movie star, or an o l d master. T h i s n o w brings us to the factual core of the "pseudoevent," a label applied t o the n e w media, i n general, because o f their p o w e r to give n e w patterns to our lives b y acceleration o f older patterns. I t is necessary t o reflect that this same insidious p o w e r was once felt i n the old media, including languages. A l l media exist t o invest our lives w i t h artificial perception and arbitrary values. A l l meaning alters w i t h acceleration, because all patterns o f personal and political interdependence change w i t h any acceleration o f i n f o r m a t i o n . Some feel keenly that speed-up has impoverished the w o r l d t h e y k n e w b y changing its forms o f human interassociation. T h e r e is n o t h i n g n e w or strange i n a parochial preference f o r those pseudo-events that happened t o enter i n t o the composition o f society just before the electric r e v o l u t i o n o f this century. T h e student o f media soon comes t o expect the new media o f any period whatever t o be classed as pseudo b y those w h o have acquired the patterns o f earlier media, whatever they may happen t o be. T h i s w o u l d seem t o be a normal, and even amiable, t r a i t ensuring a maximal degree o f social c o n t i n u i t y and permanence amidst change and innovation. B u t all the conservatism i n the w o r l d does n o t a f f o r d even a token resistance t o the ecological sweep o f the new electric media. O n a m o v i n g h i g h w a y the vehicle that backs u p is accelerating i n relation t o the h i g h w a y situation. Such w o u l d seem to be the ironical status o f the cultural reactionary. W h e n the t r e n d is one w a y his resistance insures a greater speed o f change. C o n t r o l over change w o u l d seem t o consist i n m o v i n g n o t w i t h i t b u t ahead o f i t . A n t i c i p a t i o n gives the power to deflect and c o n t r o l force. T h u s w e may feel like a man w h o has been hustled away f r o m his favorite knothole i n the ball park b y a f r a n t i c r o u t of fans eager t o see the arrival o f a movie star. W e are no sooner i n position t o l o o k at one k i n d o f event than i t is obliterated b y another, just as our W e s t e r n lives seem t o native cultures t o be one l o n g series o f preparations for living. B u t the favorite stance of l i t e r a r y man has l o n g been " t o v i e w w i t h alarm" or " t o p o i n t w i t h p r i d e , " w h i l e scrupulously i g n o r i n g what's going on.

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One immense area o f photographic influence that affects our lives is the w o r l d o f packaging and display and, i n general, the organization of shops and stores o f every k i n d . T h e newspaper that could advertise every sort o f p r o d u c t o n one page q u i c k l y gave rise t o department stores that p r o v i d e d every k i n d o f p r o d u c t under one r o o f . T o d a y the decentralizing of such institutions into a m u l t i p l i c i t y o f small shops i n shopping plazas is p a r t l y the creation of the car, p a r t l y the result o f T V . B u t the photograph still exerts some centralist pressure i n the mail-order catalogue. Y e t the mail-order houses originally felt n o t o n l y the centralist forces of r a i l w a y and postal services, b u t also, and at the same time, the decentralizing power of the telegraph. T h e Sears Roebuck enterprise was d i r e c t l y o w i n g t o stationmaster use o f the telegraph. These men saw that the waste o f goods on r a i l w a y sidings could be ended b y the speed o f the telegraph t o reroute and concentrate. T h e complex n e t w o r k of media, other than the photograph that appears i n the w o r l d of merchandising, is easier t o observe i n the w o r l d o f sports. I n one instance, the press camera contributed to radical changes i n the game o f football. A press photo o f battered players i n a 1905 game between Pennsylvania and Swarthmore came t o the attention o f President T e d d y Roosevelt. H e was so angered at the picture o f Swarthmore's mangled Bob M a x w e l l that he issued an immediate ultimatum—that i f r o u g h play continued, he w o u l d abolish the game b y executive edict. T h e effect was the same as that of the h a r r o w i n g telegraph reports o f Russell f r o m the Crimea, w h i c h created the image and role o f Florence Nightingale. N o less drastic was the effect of the press photo coverage of the lives of the r i c h . "Conspicuous consumption" o w e d less to the phrase o f Veblen than to the press photographer, w h o began t o invade the entertainment spots of the v e r y r i c h . T h e sights of men ordering drinks f r o m horseback at the bars o f clubs q u i c k l y caused a public revulsion that drove the r i c h i n t o the ways o f t i m i d m e d i o c r i t y and obscurity i n America, w h i c h they have never abandoned. T h e photograph made i t quite unsafe t o come out and play, f o r i t betrayed such blatant dimensions of p o w e r as t o

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be self-defeating. O n the other hand, the movie phase of p h o t o g r a p h y created a new aristocracy o f actors and actresses, w h o dramatized, on and off the screen, the fantasia o f conspicuous consumption that the r i c h could never achieve. T h e movie demonstrated the magic power o f the photo b y p r o v i d i n g a consumer package o f plutocratic dimension f o r all the Cinderellas i n the w o r l d . The Gutenberg Galaxy provides the necessary background f o r s t u d y i n g the rapid rise o f new visual values after the advent o f p r i n t i n g f r o m movable types. " A place f o r everything and everyt h i n g i n its place" is a feature n o t o n l y o f the compositor's arrangement of his type fonts, b u t of the entire range of human organization of knowledge and action f r o m the sixteenth c e n t u r y o n w a r d . Even the inner life o f the feelings and emotions began t o be structured and ordered and analyzed according t o separate pictorial landscapes, as Christopher Hussey explained i n his fascinating study o f The Picturesque. M o r e than a century o f this pictorial analysis of the inner life preceded Talbot's 1839 discovery o f photography. Photography, b y c a r r y i n g the pictorial delineation of natural objects m u c h f u r t h e r than paint or language could do, had a reverse effect. B y c o n f e r r i n g a means o f selfdelineation of objects, o f "statement w i t h o u t syntax," p h o t o g r a p h y gave the impetus to a delineation o f the inner w o r l d . Statement w i t h o u t syntax or verbalization was really statement b y gesture, b y mime, and b y gestalt. T h i s new dimension opened f o r human inspection b y poets like Baudelaire and Rimbaud le paysage intérieur, or the countries o f the m i n d . Poets and painters invaded this inner landscape w o r l d l o n g before Freud and Jung b r o u g h t their cameras and notebooks t o capture states of m i n d . Perhaps most spectacular of all was Claude Bernard, whose Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine ushered science i n t o le milieu intérieur o f the b o d y exactly at the time w h e n the poets d i d the same f o r the l i f e o f perception and feeling. I t is important t o note that this ultimate stage o f pictorializat i o n was a reversal o f pattern. T h e w o r l d o f b o d y and m i n d observed b y Baudelaire and Bernard was n o t photographical at all, b u t a nonvisual set o f relations such as the physicist, f o r

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example, had encountered b y means o f the new mathematics and statistics. T h e photograph m i g h t be said, also, t o have b r o u g h t t o human attention the subvisual w o r l d of bacteria that caused Louis Pasteur t o be d r i v e n f r o m the medical profession b y his indignant colleagues. Just as the painter Samuel Morse had unintentionally projected himself i n t o the nonvisual w o r l d o f the telegraph, so the photograph really transcends the pictorial b y capturing the inner gestures and postures o f b o t h b o d y and m i n d , y i e l d i n g the n e w w o r l d s of endocrinology and psychopathology. T o understand the medium o f the photograph is quite i m possible, then, w i t h o u t grasping its relations t o other media, b o t h o l d and new. F o r media, as extensions o f our physical and nervous systems, constitute a w o r l d of biochemical interactions that must ever seek new e q u i l i b r i u m as new extensions occur. I n America, people can tolerate their images i n m i r r o r or photo, b u t t h e y are made uncomfortable b y the recorded sound o f their o w n voices. T h e photo and visual w o r l d s are secure areas o f anesthesia.

21 Press Government byNeivs Leak

203

T h e headline f o r an Associated Press release (February 25, 1963) read: PRESS B L A M E D

FOR SUCCESS

KENNEDY MANAGES NEWS CYNICALLY,

SUBTLY,

KROCK

BOLDLY, CLAIMS

A r t h u r K r o c k is quoted as saying that "the principle onus rests o n the p r i n t e d and electronic process itself." T h a t m a y seem like another w a y o f saying that "hist o r y is t o blame." B u t i t is the instant consequences o f electrically moved i n f o r m a t i o n that makes necessary a deliberate artistic aim i n the placing and management o f news. I n diplomacy the same electric speed causes the decisions t o be announced before t h e y are made i n order t o ascertain the v a r y i n g responses that m i g h t occur w h e n such decisions actually are made. Such procedure, quite inevitable at the electric speed that involves the entire society i n the decision-making process, shocks the o l d press men because i t ab-

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dicates any definite point o f view. As the speed o f i n f o r m a t i o n increases, the tendency is f o r politics t o move away f r o m representation and delegation o f constituents t o w a r d immediate i n volvement o f the entire c o m m u n i t y i n the central acts o f decision. Slower speeds o f i n f o r m a t i o n make delegation and representation mandatory. Associated w i t h such delegation are the points of v i e w of the different sectors of public interest that are expected t o be p u t f o r w a r d f o r processing and consideration b y the rest o f the c o m m u n i t y . W h e n the electric speed is i n t r o d u c e d into such a delegated and representational organization, this obsolescent organization can o n l y be made t o f u n c t i o n b y a series o f subterfuges and makeshifts. These strike some observers as base betrayals o f the original aims and purposes o f the established forms. T h e massive theme o f the press can be managed o n l y b y direct contact w i t h the f o r m a l patterns of the medium i n quest i o n . I t is thus necessary t o state at once that " h u m a n interest" is a technical t e r m meaning that w h i c h happens w h e n multiple book pages or multiple i n f o r m a t i o n items are arranged i n a mosaic o n one sheet. T h e b o o k is a private confessional f o r m that provides a " p o i n t o f v i e w . " T h e press is a g r o u p confessional f o r m that provides communal participation. I t can " c o l o r " events b y using them or b y n o t using them at all. B u t i t is the daily communal exposure of multiple items i n juxtaposition that gives the press its complex dimension o f human interest. T h e book f o r m is n o t a communal mosaic or corporate image b u t a private voice. One o f the unexpected effects o f T V o n the press has been a great increase i n the popularity o f Time and Newsweek. Q u i t e inexplicably t o themselves and w i t h o u t any new effort at subscription, their circulations have mo re than doubled since T V . These news magazines are preeminently mosaic i n f o r m , offering n o t w i n d o w s o n the w o r l d like the o l d picture magazines, b u t presenting corporate images o f society i n action. Whereas the spectator of a picture magazine is passive, the reader o f a news magazine becomes m u c h involved i n the making o f meanings f o r the corporate image. T h u s the T V habit o f involvement i n mosaic image has greatly strengthened the appeal o f these

Press/205 news magazines, b u t at the same time has diminished the appeal of the older pictorial feature magazines. B o t h book and newspaper are confessional i n character, creating the effect o f inside story by their mere f o r m , regardless o f content. As the book page yields the inside story of the author's mental adventures, so the press page yields the inside story of the c o m m u n i t y i n action and interaction. I t is f o r this reason that the press seems to be p e r f o r m i n g its f u n c t i o n most w h e n revealing the seamy side. Real news is bad news—bad news about somebody, or bad news for somebody. I n 1962, w h e n Minneapolis had been f o r months w i t h o u t a newspaper, the chief of police said: "Sure, I miss the news, b u t so far as m y job goes I hope the papers never come back. T h e r e is less crime around w i t h o u t a newspaper to pass around the ideas." Even before the telegraph speed-up, the newspaper of the nineteenth century had moved a l o n g w a y t o w a r d a mosaic f o r m . R o t a r y steam presses came i n t o use decades before electricity, b u t typesetting b y hand remained more satisfactory than any mechanical means u n t i l the development o f l i n o t y p e about 1890. W i t h linotype, the press c o u l d adjust its f o r m more f u l l y to the news-gathering of the telegraph and the n e w s - p r i n t i n g of the r o t a r y presses. I t is t y p i c a l and significant that the linotype answer t o the long-standing slowness o f typesetting d i d n o t come f r o m those d i r e c t l y engaged w i t h the p r o b l e m . Fortunes had been vainly spent o n typesetting machines before James Clephane, seeking a fast w a y o f w r i t i n g o u t and duplicating shorthand notes, f o u n d a w a y t o combine the t y p e w r i t e r and the typesetter. I t was the typewriter that solved the u t t e r l y different typesetting problem. T o d a y the publishing o f book and newspaper b o t h depends o n the t y p e w r i t e r . T h e speed-up o f i n f o r m a t i o n gathering and publishing natur a l l y created new forms o f arranging material f o r readers. As early as 1830 the French poet Lamartine had said, " T h e book arrives too late," drawing attention t o the fact that the book and the newspaper are quite different forms. Slow d o w n typesetting and news-gathering, and there occurs a change, n o t o n l y i n the physical appearance of the press, b u t also i n the prose style of those

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w r i t i n g f o r i t . T h e first great change i n style came early i n the eighteenth century, w h e n the famous Toiler and Spectator of Addison and Steele discovered a n e w prose technique t o match the f o r m o f the printed w o r d . I t was the technique o f equitone. I t consisted i n maintaining a single level o f tone and attitude t o the reader t h r o u g h o u t the entire composition. B y this discovery, Addison and Steele b r o u g h t w r i t t e n discourse into line w i t h the printed w o r d and away f r o m the variety of p i t c h and tone o f the spoken, and o f even the h a n d - w r i t t e n , w o r d . T h i s w a y o f b r i n g i n g language into line w i t h p r i n t must be clearly understood. T h e telegraph broke language away again f r o m the p r i n t e d w o r d , and began t o make erratic noises called headlines, journalese, and telegraphese—phenomena that still dismay the literary c o m m u n i t y w i t h its mannerisms o f supercilious equitone that m i m e t y p o graphic u n i f o r m i t y . Headlinese produces such effects as BARBER HONES FOR

TONSILS

OLD-TIMER'S

EVENT

referring t o Sal (the Barber) Maglie, the s w a r t h y curve-ball artist w i t h the o l d B r o o k l y n Dodgers, w h e n he was t o be guest speaker at a Ball Club dinner. T h e same c o m m u n i t y admires the varied t o n a l i t y and v i g o r of A r e t i n o , Rabelais, and Nashe, all of w h o m w r o t e prose before the p r i n t pressure was strong enough to reduce the language gestures t o u n i f o r m lineality. T a l k i n g w i t h an economist w h o was serving o n an unemployment commission, I asked h i m whether he had considered newspaper reading as a f o r m o f paid employment. I was n o t w r o n g i n supposing that he w o u l d be incredulous. Nevertheless, all media that m i x ads w i t h other p r o g r a m m i n g are a f o r m of " p a i d learning." I n years t o come, w h e n the c h i l d w i l l be paid t o learn, educators w i l l recognize the sensational press as the forerunner o f paid learning. One reason that i t was difficult t o see this fact earlier is that the processing and m o v i n g o f i n f o r m a t i o n had n o t been the main business of a mechanical and industrial w o r l d . I t is, however, easily the dominant business and means o f w e a l t h i n the electric w o r l d . A t the end o f the mechanical age people still imagined that

Press/207 press and radio and even T V were merely forms o f i n f o r m a t i o n paid f o r b y the makers and users of " h a r d w a r e , " like cars and soap and gasoline. As automation takes h o l d , i t becomes obvious that information is the crucial c o m m o d i t y , and that solid products are merely incidental t o i n f o r m a t i o n movement. T h e early stages b y w h i c h i n f o r m a t i o n itself became the basic economic c o m m o d i t y o f the electric age were obscured b y the ways i n w h i c h advertising and entertainent p u t people off the track. Advertisers pay f o r space and time i n paper and magazine, o n radio and T V ; that is, they b u y a piece o f the reader, listener, or viewer as defi n i t e l y as i f they hired our homes f o r a p u b l i c meeting. T h e y w o u l d gladly pay the reader, listener, or viewer d i r e c t l y f o r his time and attention i f t h e y k n e w h o w t o do so. T h e o n l y w a y so far devised is t o p u t o n a free show. Movies i n America have n o t developed advertising intervals simply because the movie itself is the greatest of all forms o f advertisement f o r consumer goods. Those w h o deplore the f r i v o l i t y o f the press and its natural f o r m o f group exposure and communal cleansing simply ignore the nature of the m e d i u m and demand that i t be a book, as i t tends t o be i n Europe. T h e book arrived i n western Europe l o n g before the newspaper; b u t Russia and middle Europe developed the b o o k and newspaper almost together, w i t h the result that t h e y have never unscrambled the t w o forms. T h e i r journalism exudes the private p o i n t o f v i e w o f the l i t e r a r y mandarin. British and A m e r i c a n journalism, however, have always tended to exploit the mosaic f o r m o f the newspaper f o r m a t i n order t o present the discontinuous variety and i n c o n g r u i t y o f o r d i n a r y life. T h e monotonous demands o f the l i t e r a r y community—that the newspaper use its mosaic f o r m t o present a fixed p o i n t o f v i e w o n a single plane of perspective—represent a failure t o see the f o r m o f the press at all. I t is as i f the public were suddenly t o demand that department stores have o n l y one department. T h e classified ads (and stock-market quotations) are the bedrock o f the press. Should an alternative source of easy access t o such diverse daily i n f o r m a t i o n be f o u n d , the press w i l l f o l d . Radio and T V can handle the sports, news, comics, and pictures.

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T h e editorial, w h i c h is the one book-feature o f the newspaper, has been ignored f o r m a n y years, unless p u t i n the f o r m o f news or paid advertisement. I f our press is i n the main a free entertainment service paid for b y advertisers w h o w a n t to b u y readers, the Russian press is in toto the basic mode of industrial p r o m o t i o n . I f w e use news, political and personal, as entertainment t o capture ad readers, the Russians use i t as a means o f p r o m o t i o n f o r their economy. T h e i r political news has the same aggressive earnestness and posture as the voice o f the sponsor i n an A m e r i c a n ad. A culture that gets the newspaper late ( f o r the same reasons that industrializat i o n is delayed) and one that accepts the press as a f o r m of the book and regards industry as g r o u p political action, is n o t l i k e l y t o seek entertainment i n the news. Even i n America, literate people have small skill i n understanding the iconographic varieties of the ad w o r l d . A d s are ignored or deplored, b u t seldom studied and enjoyed. A n y b o d y w h o could think that the press has the same f u n c t i o n i n America and Russia, or i n France and China, is n o t really i n t o u c h w i t h the medium. A r e w e t o suppose that this k i n d o f media illiteracy is characteristic o n l y o f Westerners, and that Russians k n o w h o w t o correct the bias of the m e d i u m i n order t o read i t right? O r do people vaguely suppose that the heads of state i n the various countries o f the w o r l d k n o w that the newspaper has t o t a l l y diverse effects i n different cultures? T h e r e is no basis f o r such assumptions. Unawareness of the nature of the press i n its subliminal or latent action is as c o m m o n among politicians as among political scientists. For example, i n oral Russia b o t h Pravda and Izvestia handle domestic news, b u t the b i g international themes come t o the W e s t over Radio M o s c o w . I n visual America, radio and television handle the domestic stories, and international affairs get their f o r m a l treatment i n Time magazine and The New York Times. As a f o r e i g n service, the bluntness of Voice of America i n no w a y compares t o the sophistication of the B B C and Radio M o s c o w , b u t w h a t i t lacks i n verbal content i t makes u p i n the entertainment value of its American jazz. T h e implications o f this difference o f stress are

Press/209 i m p o r t a n t f o r an understanding of the kinds of opinions and decisions natural t o an oral, as opposed t o a visual, culture. A friend of mine w h o tried t o teach something about the forms o f media i n secondary school was struck b y one unanimous response. T h e students could n o t f o r a moment accept the suggestion that the press or any other public means of c o m m u n i cation could be used w i t h base intent. T h e y felt that this w o u l d be akin to p o l l u t i n g the air or the water supply, and t h e y d i d n ' t feel that their friends and relatives employed i n these media w o u l d sink t o such c o r r u p t i o n . Failure i n perception occurs precisely i n g i v i n g attention to the program " c o n t e n t " o f our media w h i l e i g n o r i n g the f o r m , whether i t be radio or p r i n t or the English language itself. T h e r e have been countless N e w t o n M i n o w s ( f o r m e r l y head of the Federal C o m munications Commission) t o talk about the Wasteland of the Media, men w h o k n o w n o t h i n g about the f o r m of any m e d i u m whatever. T h e y imagine that a more earnest tone and a more austere theme w o u l d p u l l up the level of the book, the press, the movie, and T V . T h e y are w r o n g t o a farcical degree. T h e y have o n l y to t r y out their t h e o r y f o r fifty consecutive w o r d s i n the mass medium of the English language. W h a t w o u l d M r . M i n o w do, w h a t w o u l d any advertiser do, w i t h o u t the w e l l - w o r n and c o r n y clichés o f popular speech? Suppose that w e were t o t r y f o r a f e w sentences t o raise the level of our daily English conversation b y a series of sober and serious sentiments? W o u l d this be a w a y o f getting at the problems of i m p r o v i n g the medium? I f all English were enunciated at a M a n d a r i n level o f u n i f o r m elegance and sententiousness, w o u l d the language and its users be better served? There comes t o m i n d the remark o f Artemus W a r d that "Shakespeare w r o t e g o o d plays b u t he w o u l d n ' t have succeeded as the W a s h i n g t o n correspondent o f a N e w Y o r k daily newspaper. H e lacked the reckisit fancy and imagination." T h e book-oriented man has the illusion that the press w o u l d be better w i t h o u t ads and w i t h o u t the pressure f r o m the advertiser. Reader surveys have astonished even publishers w i t h the revelation that the r o v i n g eyes o f newspaper readers take equal satisfaction i n ads and news c o p y . D u r i n g the Second W a r , the

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U.S.O. sent special issues o f the principal A m e r i c a n magazines t o the A r m e d Forces, w i t h the ads omitted. T h e men insisted o n having the ads back again. N a t u r a l l y . T h e ads are b y far the best part o f any magazine or newspaper. M o r e pains and thought, more w i t and art go i n t o the m a k i n g o f an ad than i n t o any prose feature o f press or magazine. A d s are news. W h a t is w r o n g w i t h them is that t h e y are always good news. I n order t o balance off the effect and t o sell good news, i t is necessary t o have a l o t o f bad news. Moreover, the newspaper is a h o t medium. I t has t o have bad news f o r the sake o f intensity and reader participation. Real news is bad news, as already noted, and as any newspaper f r o m the beginning o f p r i n t can testify. Floods, fires, and other communal disasters b y land and sea and air outrank any k i n d o f private h o r r o r or villainy as news. A d s , i n contrast, have t o shrill their happy message l o u d and clear i n order t o m a t c h the penet r a t i n g p o w e r o f bad news. Commentators o n the press and the A m e r i c a n Senate have noted that since the Senate began its p r y i n g into unsavory subjects i t has assumed a role superior t o Congress. I n fact, the great disadvantage o f the Presidency and the Executive a r m i n relation t o public opinion is that i t tries t o be a source o f g o o d news and noble directive. O n the other hand, Congressmen and Senators have the free o f the seamy side so necessary t o the v i t a l i t y o f the press. Superficially, this m a y seem cynical, especially t o those w h o imagine that the content o f a m e d i u m is a matter o f p o l i c y and personal preference, and f o r w h o m all corporate media, n o t o n l y radio and the press b u t ordinary popular speech as w e l l , are debased forms o f human expression and experience. H e r e I must repeat that the newspaper, f r o m its beginnings, has tended, n o t t o the b o o k f o r m , b u t t o the mosaic o r participational f o r m . W i t h the speed-up o f p r i n t i n g and news-gathering, this mosaic f o r m has become a dominant aspect o f human association; f o r the mosaic f o r m means, n o t a detached " p o i n t o f v i e w , " b u t participat i o n i n process. F o r that reason, the press is inseparable f r o m the democratic process, b u t quite expendable f r o m a literary or b o o k point o f view.

Press/211 A g a i n , the book-oriented man misunderstands the collective mosaic f o r m o f the press w h e n he complains about its endless reports o n the seamy underside of the social garment. B o t h b o o k and press are, i n their v e r y format, dedicated to the job of revealing the inside story, whether i t is Montaigne g i v i n g t o the private reader the delicate contours of his m i n d , or Hearst and W h i t m a n resonating their barbaric yawps over the roofs of the w o r l d . I t is the printed f o r m of public address and high intensity w i t h its precise u n i f o r m i t y o f repetition that gives t o book and press alike the special character of public confessional. T h e first items i n the press to w h i c h all men t u r n are the ones about w h i c h t h e y already k n o w . I f w e have witnessed some event, whether a ball game or a stock crash or a snowstorm, w e t u r n t o the report o f that happening, first. W h y ? T h e answer is central t o any understanding o f media. W h y does a child like t o chatter about the events o f its day, however jerkily? W h y do w e prefer novels and movies about familiar scenes and characters? Because f o r rational beings t o see or re-cognize their experience i n a n e w material f o r m is an unbought grace o f life. Experience translated into a n e w m e d i u m literally bestows a delightful p l a y back o f earlier awareness. T h e press repeats the excitement w e have i n using our w i t s , and b y using our w i t s w e can translate the outer w o r l d into the fabric of our o w n beings. T h i s excitement o f translation explains w h y people quite naturally w i s h t o use their senses all the time. Those external extensions of sense and f a c u l t y that w e call media w e use as constantly as w e do our eyes and ears, and f r o m the same motives. O n the other hand, the book-oriented man considers this nonstop use of media as debased; i t is unfamiliar t o h i m i n the b o o k - w o r l d . U p t o this p o i n t w e have discussed the press as a mosaic successor t o the b o o k - f o r m . T h e mosaic is the mode of the corporate or collective image and commands deep participation. T h i s participation is communal rather than private, inclusive rather than exclusive. F u r t h e r features o f its f o r m can best be grasped b y a f e w random views taken f r o m outside the present f o r m o f the press. H i s t o r i c a l l y , f o r example, newspapers had waited f o r news to come t o them. T h e first A m e r i c a n newspaper,

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issued i n Boston b y Benjamin H a r r i s o n September 25, 1690, announced that i t was t o be "furnished once a m o n t h ( o r i f any G l u t of Occurrences happen, o f t e n e r ) . " N o t h i n g c o u l d more plainly indicate the idea that news was something outside and beyond the newspaper. U n d e r such r u d i m e n t a r y conditions of awareness, a principal f u n c t i o n o f the newspaper was t o correct rumors and oral reports, as a dictionary m i g h t provide " c o r r e c t " spellings and meanings f o r words that had l o n g existed w i t h o u t the benefit of dictionaries. F a i r l y soon the press began t o sense that news was n o t o n l y to be reported b u t also gathered, and, indeed, t o be made. W h a t w e n t into the press was news. T h e rest was n o t news. " H e made the news" is a strangely ambiguous phrase, since t o be i n the newspaper is b o t h t o be news and t o make news. T h u s " m a k i n g the news," l i k e " m a k i n g g o o d , " implies a w o r l d o f actions and fictions alike. B u t the press is a daily action and fiction or t h i n g made, and i t is made o u t of just about everything i n the c o m m u n i t y . B y the mosaic means, i t is made i n t o a communal image or cross-section. W h e n a conventional critic like Daniel Boorstin complains that modern g h o s t - w r i t i n g , teletype, and w i r e services create an insubstantial w o r l d of "pseudo-events," he declares, i n effect, that he has never examined the nature o f any m e d i u m p r i o r t o those of the electric age. For the pseudo or fictitious character has always permeated the media, n o t just those of recent origin. L o n g before b i g business and corporations became aware o f the image of their operation as a fiction t o be carefully tattooed u p o n the public sensorium, the press had created the image of the c o m m u n i t y as a series of on-going actions unified b y datelines. A p a r t f r o m the vernacular used, the dateline is the o n l y organizing principle o f the newspaper image o f the c o m m u n i t y . T a k e off the dateline, and one day's paper is the same as the next. Y e t t o read a week-old newspaper w i t h o u t n o t i c i n g that i t is not today's is a disconcerting experience. As soon as the press recognized that news presentation was n o t a repetition o f occurrences and reports b u t a direct cause o f events, many things began to happen. Advertising and p r o m o t i o n , u n t i l then restricted, broke onto the f r o n t page,

Press/213 w i t h the aid of Barnum, as sensational stories. Today's press agent regards the newspaper as a ventriloquist does his d u m m y . H e can make i t say w h a t he wants. H e looks o n i t as a painter does his palette and tubes of pigment; f r o m the endless resources o f available events, an endless variety of managed mosaic effects can be attained. A n y private client can be ensconced i n a w i d e range of different patterns and tones of public affairs or human interest and depth items. I f w e pay careful attention to the fact that the press is a mosaic, participant k i n d or organization and a do-it-yourself k i n d o f w o r l d , w e can see w h y i t is so necessary to democratic government. T h r o u g h o u t his study of the press i n The Fourth Branch of Government, Douglas Cater is baffled b y the fact that amidst the extreme fragmentation o f government departments and branches, the press somehow manages t o keep them i n relat i o n t o each other and t o the nation. H e emphasizes the paradox that the press is dedicated t o the process o f cleansing b y p u b l i c i t y , and y e t that, i n the electronic w o r l d o f the seamless web of events, most affairs must be kept secret. T o p secrecy is translated i n t o public participation and responsibility b y the magic flexibility o f the controlled news leak. I t is b y this k i n d o f ingenious adaptation f r o m day to day that Western man is beginning to accommodate himself t o the electric w o r l d of total interdependence. N o w h e r e is this transf o r m i n g process o f adaptation more visible than i n the press. T h e press, i n itself, presents the contradiction o f an individualistic techn o l o g y dedicated t o shaping and revealing group attitudes. I t m i g h t be w e l l n o w to observe h o w the press has been modified b y the recent developments o f telephone, radio, and T V . W e have seen already that the telegraph is the factor that has done most t o create the mosaic image of the modern press, w i t h its mass o f discontinuous and unconnected features. I t is this group-image o f the communal life, rather than any editorial o u t look or slanting, that constitutes the participant of this medium. T o the book-man o f detached private culture, this is the scandal o f the press: its shameless involvement i n the depths of human

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interest and sentiment. B y eliminating time and space i n news presentation, the telegraph dimmed the privacy o f the b o o k - f o r m , and heightened, instead, the new public image i n the press. T h e first h a r r o w i n g experience f o r the press man visiting M o s c o w is the absence o f telephone books. A f u r t h e r h o r r i f y i n g revelation is the absence of central switchboards i n government departments. Y o u k n o w the number, or else. T h e student of media is happy t o read a hundred volumes t o discover t w o facts such as these. T h e y floodlight a vast m u r k y area o f the pressw o r l d , and illuminate the role of telephone as seen t h r o u g h another culture. T h e A m e r i c a n newspaperman i n large degree assembles his stories and processes his data b y telephone because o f the speed and immediacy of the oral process. O u r popular press is a near approximation t o the grapevine. T h e Russian and European newspaperman is, b y comparison, a littérateur. I t is a paradoxical situation, b u t the press i n literate America has an intensely oral character, w h i l e i n oral Russia and Europe the press has a strongly literary character and f u n c t i o n . T h e English dislike the telephone so m u c h that they substitute numerous mail deliveries f o r i t . T h e Russians use the telephone f o r a status symbol, like the alarm clock w o r n b y t r i b a l chiefs as an article of attire i n A f r i c a . T h e mosaic o f the press image i n Russia is felt as an immediate f o r m o f tribal u n i t y and participat i o n . Those features o f the press that w e f i n d most discordant w i t h austere individual standards of l i t e r a r y culture are just the ones that recommend i t t o the Communist Party. " A newspaper," L e n i n once declared, "is n o t o n l y a collective propagandist and collective agitator; i t is also a collective organizer." Stalin called i t "the most p o w e r f u l weapon o f our P a r t y . " Khrushchev cites i t as " o u r chief ideological weapon." These men had more an eye t o the collective f o r m o f the press mosaic, w i t h its magical power to impose its o w n assumptions, than t o the p r i n t e d w o r d as expressing a private p o i n t of v i e w . I n oral Russia, fragmentation o f government powers is u n k n o w n . N o t f o r them our f u n c t i o n o f the press as unifier o f fragmented departments. T h e Russian m o n o l i t h has quite different uses f o r the press mosaic. Russia n o w needs the press (as w e f o r m e r l y d i d the b o o k ) to translate a tribal

Press/215 and oral c o m m u n i t y i n t o some degree o f visual, u n i f o r m culture able t o sustain a market system. I n E g y p t the press is needed to effect nationalism, that visual k i n d o f u n i t y that springs men out of local and tribal patterns. Paradoxically, radio has come t o the fore i n E g y p t as the rejuvenator o f the ancient tribes. T h e battery radio carried on the camel gives to the Bedouin tribes a power and v i t a l i t y u n k n o w n before, so that t o use the w o r l d "nationalism" f o r the f u r y of oral agitation that the Arabs have felt b y radio is t o conceal the situation f r o m ourselves. U n i t y of the Arab-speaking w o r l d can o n l y come b y the press. Nationalism was u n k n o w n to the Western w o r l d u n t i l the Renaissance, w h e n Gutenberg made i t possible t o see the mother tongue i n u n i f o r m dress. Radio does n o t h i n g f o r this u n i f o r m visual u n i t y so necessary t o nationalism. I n order t o restrict radio-listening t o national programs, some A r a b governments have passed a l a w f o r b i d d i n g the use of private headphones, i n effect enforcing a t r i b a l collectivism i n their radio audiences. Radio restores tribal sensitivity and exclusive involvement i n the w e b o f kinship. T h e press, o n the other hand, creates a visual, n o t too-involved k i n d o f u n i t y that is hospitable t o the inclusion o f m a n y tribes, and t o diversity o f private outlook. I f telegraph shortened the sentence, radio shortened the news story, and T V injected the interrogative m o o d i n t o journalism. I n fact, the press is n o w n o t o n l y a telephoto mosaic o f the human c o m m u n i t y hour b y hour, b u t its technology is also a mosaic o f all the technologies of the c o m m u n i t y . Even i n its selection o f the n e w s w o r t h y , the press prefers those persons w h o have already been accorded some n o t o r i e t y existence i n movies, radio, T V , and drama. B y this fact, w e can test the nature o f the press medium, f o r a n y b o d y w h o appears o n l y i n the newspaper is, b y that token, an o r d i n a r y citizen. Wallpaper manufacturers have recently begun t o issue w a l l paper that presents the appearance o f a French newspaper. T h e Eskimo sticks magazine pages o n the ceiling o f his igloo t o deter d r i p . B u t even an o r d i n a r y newspaper o n a kitchen floor w i l l reveal news items that one had missed w h e n the paper was i n hand. Yet whether one uses the press f o r p r i v a c y i n public c o n -

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veyances, or f o r involvement i n the communal w h i l e enjoying privacy, the mosaic o f the press manages t o effect a complex many-leveled f u n c t i o n o f group-awareness and participation such as the book has never been able t o p e r f o r m . T h e f o r m a t o f the press—that is, its structural characteristics —were quite naturally taken over b y the poets after Baudelaire i n order to evoke an inclusive awareness. O u r ordinary newspaper page today is n o t o n l y symbolist and surrealist i n an avant-garde way, b u t i t was the earlier inspiration o f symbolism and surrealism i n art and poetry, as a n y b o d y can discover b y reading Flaubert or Rimbaud. Approached as newspaper f o r m , any part o f Joyce's Ulysses or any poem o f T . S. Eliot's before the Quartets is more readily enjoyed. Such, however, is the austere c o n t i n u i t y o f book culture that i t scorns t o notice these liaisons dangereuses among the media, especially the scandalous affairs o f the book-page w i t h electronic creatures f r o m the other side o f the linotype. I n v i e w of the inveterate concern o f the press w i t h cleansing b y p u b l i c i t y , i t m a y be w e l l t o ask i f i t does n o t set u p an inevitable clash w i t h the medium of the book. T h e press as a collective and communal image assumes a natural posture o f opposition to all private manipulation. A n y mere individual w h o begins t o stir about as i f he were a public something-or-other is g o i n g t o get i n t o the press. A n y individual w h o manipulates the public f o r his private good m a y also feel the cleansing power of p u b l i c i t y . T h e cloak of invisibility, therefore, w o u l d seem t o fall most naturally o n those w h o o w n newspapers or w h o use them extensively f o r commercial ends. M a y n o t this explain the strange obsession o f the bookman w i t h the press-lords as essentially corrupt? T h e merely private and fragmentary point of v i e w assumed b y the book reader and w r i t e r finds natural grounds f o r hostility t o w a r d the b i g communal power o f the press. As forms, as media, the book and the newspaper w o u l d seem to be as incompatible as any t w o media c o u l d be. T h e owners o f media always endeavor to give the public w h a t i t wants, because they sense that their power is i n the medium and n o t i n the message or the program.

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H e r e is a news items that captures a good deal o f the meaning o f the automobile i n relation t o social life: I was terrific. There I was i n my white Continental, and I was wearing a pure-silk, pure-white, embroidered cowboy shirt, and black gabardine trousers. Beside me i n the car was m y jet-black Great Dane imported f r o m Europe, named Dana von Krupp. You just can't do any better than that. A l t h o u g h i t may be t r u e t o say that an A m e r i c a n is a creature o f f o u r wheels, and t o p o i n t o u t that A m e r i c a n y o u t h a t t r i b utes m u c h more importance t o a r r i v i n g at driver's-license age than at v o t i n g age, i t is also true that the car has become an article o f dress w i t h o u t w h i c h w e feel uncertain, unclad, and incomplete i n the urban compound. Some observers insist that, as a status symbol, the house has, o f late, supplanted the car. I f so, this shift f r o m the mobile open road t o the mani-

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cured roots of suburbia may s i g n i f y a real change i n A m e r i can orientation. T h e r e is a g r o w i n g uneasiness about the degree t o w h i c h cars have become the real population o f our cities, w i t h a resulting loss o f human scale, b o t h i n p o w e r and i n distance. T h e t o w n planners are p l o t t i n g ways and means t o b u y back our cities f o r the pedestrian f r o m the b i g transportation interests. L y n n W h i t e tells the story o f the stirrup and the heavyarmored k n i g h t i n his Medieval Technology and Social Change. So expensive y e t so mandatory was the armored rider f o r shock combat, that the cooperative feudal system came i n t o existence to pay f o r his equipment. Renaissance gunpowder and ordnance ended the m i l i t a r y role o f the k n i g h t and returned the c i t y to the pedestrian burgess. I f the motorist is technologically and economically far super i o r t o the armored k n i g h t , i t m a y be that electric changes i n technology are about t o dismount h i m and r e t u r n us t o the pedestrian scale. " G o i n g t o w o r k " m a y be o n l y a transitory phase, like " g o i n g shopping." T h e g r o c e r y interests have l o n g foreseen the possibility o f shopping b y t w o - w a y T V , or videotelephone. W i l l i a m M . Freeman, w r i t i n g f o r The New York Times Service (Tuesday, October 15, 1963), reports that there w i l l certainly be "a decided transition f r o m today's distribution vehicles. . . . M r s . Customer w i l l be able t o tune i n o n various stores. H e r credit identification w i l l be picked u p automatically via television. Items i n f u l l and f a i t h f u l c o l o r i n g w i l l be viewed. Distance w i l l h o l d no problem, since b y the end o f the century the consumer w i l l be able t o make direct television connections regardless o f h o w m a n y miles are i n v o l v e d . " W h a t is w r o n g w i t h all such prophecies is that t h e y assume a stable f r a m e w o r k o f fact—in this case, the house and the store— w h i c h is usually the first t o disappear. T h e changing relation between customer and shopkeeper is as n o t h i n g compared t o the changing pattern o f w o r k itself, i n an age of automation. I t is true that going-to and c o m i n g - f r o m w o r k are almost certain to lose all o f their present character. T h e car as vehicle, i n that sense, w i l l go the w a y o f the horse. T h e horse has lost its role i n transportation b u t has made a strong comeback i n entertainment.

Motorcar/219 So w i t h the motorcar. Its f u t u r e does n o t belong i n the area o f transportation. H a d the i n f a n t automotive industry, i n 1910, seen fit t o call a conference t o consider the f u t u r e of the horse, the discussion w o u l d have been concerned t o discover new jobs f o r the horse and new kinds o f training to extend the usefulness of the horse. T h e complete r e v o l u t i o n i n transportation and i n housing and c i t y arrangement w o u l d have been ignored. T h e t u r n o f our economy t o making and servicing motorcars, and the devot i o n o f m u c h leisure time t o their use o n a vast n e w h i g h w a y system, w o u l d n o t even have been t h o u g h t of. I n other w o r d s , i t is the f r a m e w o r k itself that changes w i t h n e w technology, and n o t just the picture w i t h i n the frame. Instead o f t h i n k i n g of doing our shopping b y television, w e should become aware that T V i n t e r c o m means the end o f shopping itself, and the end o f w o r k as w e k n o w i t as present. T h e same fallacy besets out t h i n k i n g about T V and education. W e t h i n k o f T V as an incidental aid, whereas i n fact i t has already transformed the learning process of the y o u n g , quite independently o f home and school alike. I n the 1930s, w h e n millions of comic books were inundating the y o u n g w i t h gore, n o b o d y seemed t o notice that emotionally the violence of millions o f cars i n our streets was incomparably more hysterical than a n y t h i n g that could ever be printed. A l l the rhinos and hippos and elephants i n the w o r l d , i f gathered i n one c i t y , c o u l d not begin t o create the menace and explosive intensity o f the h o u r l y and daily experience o f the internal-combustion engine. A r e people really expected to internalize—live w i t h — a l l this p o w e r and explosive violence, w i t h o u t processing and sip h o n i n g i t off i n t o some f o r m of fantasy f o r compensation and balance? I n the silent pictures o f the 1920s a great many o f the sequences involved the motorcar and policemen. Since the film was then accepted as an optical illusion, the cop was the principal reminder o f the existence o f g r o u n d rules i n the game of fantasy. A s such, he t o o k an endless beating. T h e motorcars o f the 1920s l o o k t o our eyes like ingenious contraptions hastily assembled i n a t o o l shop. T h e i r l i n k w i t h the b u g g y was still strong and clear. T h e n came the balloon tires, the massive interior, and the b u l g i n g

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fenders. Some people see the b i g car as a sort o f bloated middle age, f o l l o w i n g the g a w k y period of the first love-affair between A m e r i c a and the car. B u t f u n n y as the Viennese analysts have been able t o get about the car as sex object, t h e y have at last, i n so doing, d r a w n attention t o the fact that, like the bees i n the plant w o r l d , men have always been the sex organs o f the technological w o r l d . T h e car is no more and no less a sex object than the wheel o r the hammer. W h a t the m o t i v a t i o n researchers have missed entirely is the fact that the A m e r i c a n sense o f spatial f o r m has changed m u c h since radio, and drastically since T V . I t is misleading, t h o u g h harmless, t o t r y t o grasp this change as middle-age reaching out f o r the sylph L o l i t a . Certainly there have been some strenuous slimming programs f o r the car i n recent years. B u t i f one were t o ask, " W i l l the car last?" or "Is the motorcar here t o stay?" there w o u l d be confusion and doubt at once. Strangely, i n so progressive an age, w h e n change has become the o n l y constant i n our lives, w e never ask, "Is the car here t o stay?" T h e answer, o f course, is " N o . " I n the electric age, the wheel itself is obsolescent. A t the heart o f the car industry there are men w h o k n o w that the car is passing, as certainly as the cuspidor was doomed w h e n the l a d y typist arrived o n the business scene. W h a t arrangements have they made t o ease the automobile i n d u s t r y off the center o f the stage? T h e mere obsolescence o f the wheel does n o t mean its disappearance. I t means o n l y that, like penmanship or t y p o g r a p h y , the wheel w i l l move into a subsidiary role i n the culture. I n the middle o f the nineteenth century great success was achieved w i t h steam-engined cars o n the open road. O n l y the heavy toll-taxes levied b y local road authorities discouraged steam engines on the highways. Pneumatic tires were fitted t o a steam car i n France i n 1887. T h e A m e r i c a n Stanley Steamer began t o flourish i n 1899. F o r d had already b u i l t his first car i n 1896, and the F o r d M o t o r Company was founded i n 1903. I t was the electric spark that enabled the gasoline engine t o take over f r o m the steam engine. T h e crossing of electricity, the biological f o r m , w i t h the mechanical f o r m was never to release a greater force. I t is T V that has dealt the heavy b l o w t o the A m e r i c a n car.

Motorcar/22] T h e car and the assembly line had become the ultimate expression o f Gutenberg technology; that is, o f u n i f o r m and repeatable p r o c esses applied t o all aspects o f w o r k and l i v i n g . T V b r o u g h t a questioning of all mechanical assumptions about u n i f o r m i t y and standardization, as of all consumer values. T V b r o u g h t also obsession w i t h depth study and analysis. M o t i v a t i o n research, o f f e r i n g t o hook the ad and the id, became immediately acceptable t o the frantic executive w o r l d that felt the same w a y about the n e w A m e r i c a n tastes as A l Capp d i d about his 50,000,000 audience w h e n T V struck. Something had happened. America was not the same. F o r f o r t y years the car had been the great leveler o f physical space and o f social distance as w e l l . T h e talk about the A m e r i c a n car as a status symbol has always overlooked the basic fact that i t is the power of the motorcar that levels all social differences, and makes the pedestrian a second-class citizen. M a n y people have observed h o w the real integrator or leveler o f w h i t e and N e g r o i n the South was the private car and the t r u c k , n o t the expression o f m o r a l points of v i e w . T h e simple and obvious fact about the car is that, more than any horse, i t is an extension o f man that turns the rider i n t o a superman. I t is a hot, explosive medium o f social communication. A n d T V , b y cooling off the A m e r i c a n public tastes and creating n e w needs f o r unique w r a p - a r o u n d space, w h i c h the European car p r o m p t l y provided, practically unhorsed the A m e r i c a n auto-cavalier. T h e small European cars reduce h i m to near-pedestrian status once more. Some people manage t o drive them o n the sidewalk. T h e car d i d its social leveling b y horsepower alone. I n t u r n , the car created highways and resorts that were n o t o n l y v e r y m u c h alike i n all parts of the land, b u t equally available t o all. Since T V , there is naturally frequent complaint about this u n i f o r m i t y of vehicle and vacation scene. As J o h n Keats p u t i t i n his attack o n the car and the i n d u s t r y i n The Insolent Chariots, where one automobile can go, all other automobiles do go, and wherever the automobile goes, the automobile version o f civilization surely follows. N o w this is a T V - o r i e n t e d sentiment that is n o t o n l y a n t i car and anti-standardization, b u t anti-Gutenberg, and therefore

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anti-American as w e l l . O f course, I k n o w that John Keats doesn't mean this. H e had never thought about media or the w a y i n w h i c h Gutenberg created H e n r y F o r d and the assembly line and standardized culture. A l l he k n e w was that i t was popular t o decry the u n i f o r m , the standardized, and the h o t forms of communication, i n general. For that reason, Vance Packard could make hay w i t h The Hidden Persuaders. H e hooted at the o l d salesmen and the h o t media, just as MAD does. Before T V , such gestures w o u l d have been meaningless. I t w o u l d n ' t have paid off. N o w , i t pays to laugh at the mechanical and the merely standardized. John Keats could question the central g l o r y o f classless A m e r i c a n society b y saying, " I f you've seen one part o f America, y o u ' v e seen i t a l l , " and that the car gave the A m e r i c a n the o p p o r t u n i t y , n o t t o travel and experience adventure, b u t " t o make himself more and more c o m m o n . " Since T V , i t has become popular to regard the more and more u n i f o r m and repeatable products o f industry w i t h the same contempt that a Brahmin like H e n r y James m i g h t have f e l t f o r a chamber-pot dynasty i n 1890. I t is true that automation is about t o produce the unique and custom-built at assembly-line speed and cheapness. A u t o m a t i o n can manage the bespoke car or coat w i t h less fuss than w e ever produced the standardized ones. B u t the unique p r o d u c t cannot circulate i n our market or distribution setups. As a result, w e are m o v i n g i n t o a most revolutionary period i n marketing, as i n everything else. W h e n Europeans used to visit America before the Second W a r they w o u l d say, " B u t y o u have communism here!" W h a t t h e y meant was that w e n o t o n l y had standardized goods, b u t everybody had them. O u r millionaires n o t o n l y ate cornflakes and hot dogs, b u t really t h o u g h t of themselves as middle-class people. W h a t else? H o w could a millionaire be anything b u t " m i d d l e class" i n America unless he had the creative imagination o f an artist t o make a unique life f o r himself? Is i t strange that E u r o peans should associate u n i f o r m i t y o f environment and c o m modities w i t h communism? A n d that L l o y d W a r n e r and his associates, i n their studies of A m e r i c a n cities, should speak of the A m e r i c a n class system i n terms of income? T h e highest income cannot liberate a N o r t h American f r o m his "middle-class" life.

Motorcar/223 T h e lowest income gives everybody a considerable piece o f the same middle-class existence. T h a t is, w e really have homogenized our schools and factories and cities and entertainment t o a great extent, just because w e are literate and do accept the logic o f u n i f o r m i t y and homogeneity that is inherent i n Gutenberg technology. T h i s logic, w h i c h had never been accepted i n Europe u n t i l v e r y recently, has suddenly been questioned i n America, since the tactile mesh o f the T V mosaic has begun t o permeate the A m e r i c a n sensorium. W h e n a popular w r i t e r can, w i t h c o n fidence, decry the use o f the car f o r travel as m a k i n g the driver " m o r e and more c o m m o n , " the fabric o f A m e r i c a n life has been questioned. O n l y a f e w years back Cadillac announced its " E l Dorado B r o u g h a m " as having anti-dive c o n t r o l , outriggers, pillarless styling, projectile-shaped g u l l - w i n g bumpers, outboard exhaust ports, and various other exotic features b o r r o w e d f r o m the n o n motorcar w o r l d . W e were invited t o associate i t w i t h H a w a i i a n surf riders, w i t h gulls soaring like sixteen-inch shells, and w i t h the b o u d o i r o f Madame de Pompadour. C o u l d MAD magazine do any better? I n the T V age, any o f these tales f r o m the Vienna woods, dreamed up b y motivational researchers, c o u l d be relied u p o n to be an ideal comic script f o r MAD. T h e script was always there, i n fact, b u t not t i l l T V was the audience conditioned t o enjoy i t . T o mistake the car f o r a status symbol, just because i t is asked t o be taken as a n y t h i n g b u t a car, is to mistake the w h o l e meaning o f this v e r y late p r o d u c t of the mechanical age that is n o w y i e l d i n g its f o r m t o electric technology. T h e car is a superb piece o f u n i f o r m , standardized mechanism that is of a piece w i t h the Gutenberg technology and literacy w h i c h created the first classless society i n the w o r l d . T h e car gave t o the democratic cavalier his horse and armor and haughty insolence i n one package, t r a n s m o g r i f y i n g the k n i g h t into a misguided missile. I n fact, the A m e r i c a n car d i d n o t level d o w n w a r d , b u t u p w a r d , t o w a r d the aristocratic idea. Enormous increase and distribution o f p o w e r had also been the equalizing force o f literacy and various other forms o f mechanization. T h e willingness t o accept the car as a status symbol, restricting its m o r e expansive f o r m t o the use o f higher

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executives, is n o t a m a r k of the car and mechanical age, b u t o f the electric forces that are n o w ending this mechanical age o f u n i f o r m i t y and standardization, and recreating the norms o f status and role. W h e n the motorcar was new, i t exercised the t y p i c a l mechanical pressure o f explosion and separation o f functions. I t broke u p f a m i l y life, or so i t seemed, i n the 1920s. I t separated w o r k and domicile, as never before. I t exploded each c i t y into a dozen suburbs, and then extended many o f the forms o f urban life along the highways u n t i l the open road seemed t o become n o n stop cities. I t created the asphalt jungles, and caused 40,000 square miles o f green and pleasant land t o be cemented over. W i t h the arrival o f plane travel, the motorcar and t r u c k teamed u p together t o w r e c k the railways. T o d a y small children plead f o r a t r a i n ride as i f i t were a stagecoach or horse and cutter: "Before they're gone, D a d d y . " T h e motorcar ended the countryside and substituted a new landscape i n w h i c h the car was a sort o f steeplechaser. A t the same time, the m o t o r destroyed the c i t y as a casual environment i n w h i c h families c o u l d be reared. Streets, and even sidewalks, became too intense a scene f o r the casual interplay o f g r o w i n g u p . A s the c i t y filled w i t h mobile strangers, even next-door neighbors became strangers. T h i s is the story o f the motorcar, and i t has n o t m u c h longer t o r u n . T h e tide o f taste and tolerance has turned, since T V , to make the hot-car m e d i u m increasingly tiresome. Witness the portent o f the crosswalk, where the small c h i l d has p o w e r t o stop a cement t r u c k . T h e same change has rendered the b i g c i t y unbearable to many w h o w o u l d no more have f e l t that w a y ten years ago than they c o u l d have enjoyed reading MAD. T h e continuing power o f the car medium t o transform the patterns of settlement appears f u l l y i n the w a y i n w h i c h the new urban kitchen has taken o n the same central and m u l t i p l e social character as the o l d f a r m kitchen. T h e f a r m kitchen had been the k e y p o i n t of e n t r y t o the farmhouse, and had become the social center, as w e l l . T h e n e w suburban home again makes the kitchen the center and, ideally, is localized f o r access to and f r o m the car. T h e car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive

Motorcar/22b shell, o f urban and suburban man. Even before the Volkswagen, observers above street level have often noticed the near-resemblance o f cars t o shiny-backed insects. I n the age of the tactileoriented skin-diver, this hard shiny carapace is one of the blackest marks against the motorcar. I t is f o r motorized man that the shopping plazas have emerged. T h e y are strange islands that make the pedestrian feel friendless and disembodied. T h e car bugs h i m . T h e car, i n a w o r d , has quite refashioned all of the spaces that unite and separate men, and i t w i l l continue to do so f o r a decade more, b y w h i c h time the electronic successors to the car w i l l be manifest.

23 Ads Keeping Upset with the Joneses

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T h e continuous pressure is t o create ads more and m o r e i n the image o f audience motives and desires. T h e p r o d u c t matters less as the audience participation increases. A n extreme example is the corset series that protests that " i t is n o t the corset that y o u feel." T h e need is t o make the ad i n clude the audience experience. T h e p r o d u c t and the public response become a single complex pattern. T h e art o f advertising has w o n d r o u s l y come t o f u l f i l l the early definition o f anthropology as "the science o f man embracing w o m a n . " T h e steady t r e n d i n advertising is t o manifest the p r o d u c t as an integral part o f large social purposes and processes. W i t h v e r y large budgets the commercial artists have tended t o develop the ad into an icon, and icons are n o t specialist fragments or aspects b u t unified and compressed images o f complex k i n d . T h e y focus a large region of experience i n t i n y compass. T h e trend i n ads, then, is away f r o m the consumer

Ads/121 p i c t u r e o f p r o d u c t to the producer image o f process. T h e corporate image of process includes the consumer i n the producer role as w e l l . T h i s p o w e r f u l n e w t r e n d i n ads t o w a r d the iconic image has greatly weakened the position of the magazine i n d u s t r y i n general and the picture magazines i n particular. Magazine features have l o n g employed the pictorial treatment of themes and news. Side b y side w i t h these magazine features that present shots and fragmentary points o f v i e w , there are the n e w massive iconic ads w i t h their compressed images that include producer and consumer, seller and society i n a single image. T h e ads make the features seem pale, weak, and anemic. T h e features belong t o the o l d pictorial w o r l d that preceded T V mosaic imagery. I t is the p o w e r f u l mosaic and iconic thrust i n our experience since T V that explains the paradox of the upsurge o f Time and Newsweek and similar magazines. These magazines present the news i n a compressed mosaic f o r m that is a real parallel t o the ad w o r l d . Mosaic news is neither narrative, n o r p o i n t o f v i e w , nor explanation, nor comment. I t is a corporate image i n depth o f the c o m m u n i t y i n action and invites maximal participation i n the social process. A d s seem t o w o r k on the v e r y advanced principle that a small pellet or pattern i n a noisy, redundant barrage o f repetition w i l l gradually assert itself. A d s push the principle of noise all the w a y t o the plateau o f persuasion. T h e y are quite i n accord w i t h the procedures of brain-washing. T h i s depth principle o f onslaught o n the unconscious m a y be the reason w h y . M a n y people have expressed uneasiness about the advertising enterprise i n our time. T o p u t the matter a b r u p t l y , the advertising industry is a crude attempt t o extend the principles o f automation t o every aspect o f society. Ideally, advertising aims at the goal o f a programmed harmony among all human impulses and aspirations and endeavors. U s i n g handicraft methods, i t stretches out t o w a r d the ultimate electronic goal o f a collective consciousness. W h e n all p r o d u c t i o n and all consumption are b r o u g h t i n t o a preestablished harmony w i t h all desire and all effort, then advertising w i l l have liquidated itself b y its o w n success.

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Since the advent o f T V , the exploitation of the unconscious b y the advertiser has h i t a snag. T V experience favors m u c h more consciousness concerning the unconscious than do the hardsell forms of presentation i n the press, the magazine, movie, or radio. T h e sensory tolerance o f the audience has changed, and so have the methods of appeal b y the advertisers. I n the new cool T V w o r l d , the o l d h o t w o r l d of hard-selling, earnest-talking salesmen has all the antique charm o f the songs and togs of the 1920s. M o r t Sahl and Shelley Berman are merely f o l l o w i n g , n o t setting, a trend i n spoofing the ad w o r l d . T h e y discovered that they have o n l y t o reel off an ad or news i t e m t o have the audience i n fits. W i l l Rogers discovered years ago that any newspaper read aloud f r o m a theater stage is hilarious. T h e same is t r u e today o f ads. A n y ad p u t into a n e w setting is f u n n y . T h i s is a w a y of saying that any ad consciously attended t o is comical. A d s are n o t meant f o r conscious consumption. T h e y are intended as subliminal pills f o r the subconscious i n order t o exercise an h y p n o t i c spell, especially o n sociologists. T h a t is one o f the most e d i f y i n g aspects o f the huge educational enterprise that w e call advertising, whose twelve-billion-dollar annual budget approximates the national school budget. A n y expensive ad represents the t o i l , attention, testing, w i t , art, and skill of many people. Far more t h o u g h t and care go i n t o the composition o f any prominent ad i n a newspaper or magazine than go i n t o the w r i t i n g o f their features and editorials. A n y expensive ad is as carefully b u i l t o n the tested foundations o f public stereotypes or "sets" o f established attitudes, as any skyscraper is b u i l t o n bedrock. Since h i g h l y skilled and perceptive teams o f talent cooperate i n the m a k i n g o f an ad f o r any established line o f goods whatever, i t is obvious that any acceptable ad is a vigorous dramatization o f communal experience. N o g r o u p of sociologists can approximate the ad teams i n the gathering and processing o f exploitable social data. T h e ad teams have billions to spend annually o n research and testing of reactions, and their products are magnificent accumulations of material about the shared experience and feelings o f the entire c o m m u n i t y . O f course, i f ads w e r e t o depart f r o m the center o f

Ads/229 this shared experience, t h e y w o u l d collapse at once, b y losing all h o l d o n our feelings. I t is true, of course, that ads use the most basic and tested human experience of a c o m m u n i t y i n grotesque ways. T h e y are as incongruous, i f looked at consciously, as the playing of "Silver Threads among the G o l d " as music f o r a strip-tease act. B u t ads are carefully designed b y the Madison Avenue frogmen-of-them i n d f o r semiconscious exposure. T h e i r mere existence is a testim o n y , as w e l l as a c o n t r i b u t i o n , to the somnambulistic state o f a tired metropolis. A f t e r the Second W a r , an ad-conscious A m e r i c a n a r m y o f ficer i n I t a l y noted w i t h misgiving that Italians could tell y o u the names of cabinet ministers, b u t not the names o f commodities preferred b y Italian celebrities. Furthermore, he said, the w a l l space o f Italian cities was given over t o political, rather than c o m mercial, slogans. H e predicted that there was small hope that Italians w o u l d ever achieve any sort of domestic prosperity or calm u n t i l they began t o w o r r y about the rival claims o f c o r n flakes and cigarettes, rather than the capacities of public men. I n fact, he w e n t so far as t o say that democratic freedom v e r y largely consists i n i g n o r i n g politics and w o r r y i n g , instead, about the threat o f scaly scalp, hairy legs, sluggish bowels, saggy breasts, receding gums, excess w e i g h t , and tired b l o o d . T h e a r m y officer was probably r i g h t . A n y c o m m u n i t y that wants t o expedite and maximize the exchange o f goods and services has simply got to homogenize its social life. T h e decision t o homogenize comes easily to the h i g h l y literate population of the English-speaking w o r l d . Y e t i t is hard f o r oral cultures t o agree o n this program of homogenization, f o r they are o n l y too prone t o translate the message of radio into tribal politics, rather than i n t o a n e w means o f pushing Cadillacs. T h i s is one reason that i t was easy f o r the retribalized N a z i t o feel superior to the A m e r i c a n consumer. T h e tribal man can spot the gaps i n the literate ment a l i t y v e r y easily. O n the other hand, i t is the special illusion o f literate societies that they are h i g h l y aware and individualistic. Centuries o f typographic conditioning i n patterns of lineal u n i -

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f o r m i t y and fragmented repeatability have, i n the electric age, been given increasing critical attention b y the artistic w o r l d . T h e lineal process has been pushed out o f industry, n o t o n l y i n management and p r o d u c t i o n , b u t i n entertainment, as w e l l . I t is the new mosaic f o r m o f the T V image that has replaced the G u t e n berg structural assumptions. Reviewers of W i l l i a m Burroughs' The Naked Lunch have alluded t o the prominent use of the "mosaic" t e r m and method i n his novel. T h e T V image renders the w o r l d of standard brands and consumer goods merely amusi n g . Basically, the reason is that the mosaic mesh of the T V image compels so m u c h active participation o n the part of the viewer that he develops a nostalgia f o r pre-consumer ways and days. Lewis M u m f o r d gets serious attention w h e n he praises the cohesive f o r m of medieval towns as relevant to our time and needs. Advertising got into high gear o n l y at the end o f the last century, w i t h the invention of photoengraving. Ads and pictures then became interchangeable and have continued so. M o r e i m portant, pictures made possible great increases i n newspaper and magazine circulation that also increased the quantity and p r o f i t ability of ads. T o d a y i t is inconceivable that any publication, daily or periodical, could hold more than a f e w thousand readers w i t h o u t pictures. F o r b o t h the pictorial ad or the picture story provide large quantities of instant i n f o r m a t i o n and instant humans, such as are necessary f o r keeping abreast i n our k i n d of culture. W o u l d i t not seem natural and necessary that the y o u n g be p r o vided w i t h at least as m u c h training o f perception i n this graphic and photographic w o r l d as they get i n the typographic? I n fact, they need more training i n graphics, because the art o f casting and arranging actors i n ads is b o t h complex and f o r c e f u l l y insidious. Some writers have argued that the Graphic Revolution has shifted our culture away f r o m private ideals t o corporate images. T h a t is really t o say that the photo and T V seduce us f r o m the literate and private " p o i n t of v i e w " t o the complex and inclusive w o r l d of the group icon. T h a t is certainly w h a t advertising does. Instead o f presenting a private argument or vista, i t offers a w a y

Ads/231 o f l i f e that is f o r everybody or nobody. I t offers this prospect w i t h arguments that concern o n l y irrelevant and trivial matters. F o r example, a lush car ad features a baby's rattle o n the r i c h r u g o f the back floor and says that i t has removed unwanted car rattles as easily as the user could remove the baby's rattle. T h i s k i n d o f c o p y has really n o t h i n g to do w i t h rattles. T h e c o p y is merely a punning gag t o distract the critical faculties w h i l e the image o f the car goes t o w o r k o n the hypnotized viewer. Those w h o have spent their lives protesting about "false and misleading ad c o p y " are godsends t o advertisers, as teetotalers are t o brewers, and moral censors are t o books and films. T h e protestors are the best acclaimers and accelerators. Since the advent o f pictures, the job o f the ad c o p y is as incidental and latent, as the "meaning" o f a poem is t o a poem, o r the words o f a song are t o a song. H i g h l y literate people cannot cope w i t h the nonverbal art o f the pictorial, so they dance impatiently up and d o w n t o express a pointless disapproval that renders them f u t i l e and gives n e w p o w e r and a u t h o r i t y to the ads. T h e unconscious depth-messages o f ads are never attacked b y the literate, because o f their incapacity t o notice or discuss nonverbal forms o f arrangement and meaning. T h e y have not the art t o argue w i t h pictures. W h e n early i n T V broadcasting hidden ads were t r i e d out, the literate were i n a great panic u n t i l they were dropped. T h e fact that t y p o g r a p h y is itself m a i n l y subliminal i n effect and that pictures are, as w e l l , is a secret that is safe f r o m the book-oriented c o m m u n i t y . W h e n the movies came, the entire pattern of American l i f e w e n t o n the screen as a nonstop ad. W h a t e v e r any actor or actress w o r e or used or ate was such an ad as had never been dreamed of. T h e A m e r i c a n bathroom, kitchen, and car, like everything else, g o t the Arabian Nights treatment. T h e result was that all ads i n magazines and the press had t o look like scenes f r o m a movie. T h e y still do. B u t the focus has had t o become softer since T V . W i t h radio, ads openly w e n t over t o the incantation o f the singing commercial. Noise and nausea as a technique of achieving unforgettability became universal. A d and image making became, and have remained, the one really dynamic and g r o w i n g part o f

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the economy. B o t h movie and radio are h o t media, whose arrival pepped u p everybody t o a great degree, g i v i n g us the Roaring Twenties. T h e effect was t o provide a massive p l a t f o r m and a mandate f o r sales p r o m o t i o n as a w a y o f life that ended o n l y w i t h The Death of a Salesman and the advent o f T V . These t w o events d i d n o t coincide b y accident. T V introduced that "experience i n d e p t h " and the " d o - i t - y o u r s e l f " pattern o f l i v i n g that has shattered the image o f the individualist hard-sell salesman and the docile consumer, just as i t has b l u r r e d the f o r m e r l y clear figures o f the movie stars. T h i s is n o t t o suggest that A r t h u r M i l l e r was t r y i n g t o explain T V t o America o n the eve o f its arrival, t h o u g h he could as appropriately have titled his play " T h e B i r t h o f the PR M a n . " Those w h o saw H a r o l d L l o y d ' s World of Comedy f i l m w i l l remember their surprise at h o w m u c h o f the 1920s they had forgotten. Also, t h e y were surprised t o f i n d evidence o f h o w naive and simple the Twenties really were. T h a t age o f the vamps, the sheiks, and the cavemen was a raucous nursery compared t o our w o r l d , i n w h i c h children read MAD magazine f o r chuckles. I t was a w o r l d still innocently engaged i n expanding and explodi n g , i n separating and teasing and tearing. T o d a y , w i t h T V , w e are experiencing the opposite process o f integrating and interrelating that is a n y t h i n g b u t innocent. T h e simple faith o f the salesman i n the irresistibility o f his line ( b o t h talk and goods) n o w yields t o the complex togetherness o f the corporate posture, the process and the organization. A d s have proved t o be a self-liquidating f o r m o f c o m m u n i t y entertainment. T h e y came along just after the V i c t o r i a n gospel o f w o r k , and they promised a Beulah land of p e r f e c t i b i l i t y , where i t w o u l d be possible t o " i r o n shirts w i t h o u t hating y o u r husband." A n d n o w they are deserting the individual consumer-product i n favor o f the all-inclusive and never-ending process that is the Image o f any great corporate enterprise. T h e Container Corporat i o n of America does not feature paper bags and paper cups i n its ads, b u t the container function, b y means of great art. T h e historians and archeologists w i l l one day discover that the ads o f our time are the richest and most f a i t h f u l daily reflections that any society ever made o f its entire range o f activities. T h e E g y p t i a n

Ads/233 h i e r o g l y p h lags far behind i n this respect. W i t h T V , the smarter advertisers have made free w i t h f u r and fuzz, and b l u r and buzz. T h e y have, i n a w o r d , taken a skin-dive. For that is w h a t the T V viewer is. H e is a skin-diver, and he no longer likes garish daylight on hard, skiny surfaces, t h o u g h he must continue t o p u t u p w i t h a noisy radio sound track that is painful.

24 Games The

Extensions of Man

A l c o h o l and gambling have v e r y different meanings i n different cultures. I n our intensely individualist and fragmented W e s t e r n w o r l d , "booze" is a social b o n d and a means o f festive involvement. B y contrast, i n closely k n i t tribal society, "booze" is destructive o f all social pattern and is even used as a means t o mystical experience. I n tribal societies, gambling, o n the other hand, is a welcome avenue o f entrepreneurial e f f o r t and individual initiative. Carried i n t o an individualist society, the same gambling games and sweepstakes seem t o threaten the w h o l e social order. G a m b l i n g pushes individual initiative t o the point o f m o c k i n g the individualist social structure. T h e tribal virtue is the capitalist vice. W h e n the boys came home f r o m the m u d and b l o o d baths o f the W e s t e r n F r o n t i n 1918 and 1919, t h e y encountered the Volstead P r o h i b i t i o n A c t . I t was the

Games/235 social and political recognition that the w a r had fraternalized and tribalized us to the p o i n t where alcohol was a threat to an i n d i vidualist society. W h e n w e too are prepared t o legalize gambling, w e shall, like the English, announce to the w o r l d the end o f i n d i vidualist society and the t r e k back t o tribal ways. W e t h i n k of h u m o r as a mark o f sanity f o r a good reason: i n f u n and play w e recover the integral person, w h o i n the w o r k aday w o r l d or i n professional l i f e can use o n l y a small sector o f his being. Philip Deane, i n Captive in Korea, tells a story about games i n the midst of successive brainwashings that is t o the point. There came a time when I had to stop reading those books, to stop practising Russian because w i t h the study of language the absurd and constant assertion began to leave its mark, began to find an echo, and I felt my thinking processes getting tangled, my critical faculties getting blunted. . . . then they made a mistake. They gave us Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island i n English. . . . I could read Marx again, and question myself honestly without fear. Robert Louis Stevenson made us lighthearted, so we started dancing lessons. Games are popular art, collective, social reactions t o the main drive or action of any culture. Games, like institutions, are extensions o f social man and o f the b o d y politic, as technologies are extensions of the animal organism. B o t h games and technologies are counter-irritants or ways o f adjusting t o the stress o f the specialized actions that occur i n any social g r o u p . A s extensions of the popular response t o the w o r k a d a y stress, games become f a i t h f u l models o f a culture. T h e y incorporate b o t h the action and the reaction of w h o l e populations i n a single dynamic image. A Reuters dispatch f o r December 13, 1962, reported f r o m Tokyo: BUSINESS Is A BATTLEFIELD

Latest fashion among Japanese businessmen is the study of classical military strategy and tactics i n order to apply them to business operations. . . . I t has been reported that one of the largest advertising companies i n Japan has even made these books compulsory reading for all its employees.

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L o n g centuries o f t i g h t tribal organization n o w stand the Japanese i n v e r y good stead i n the trade and commerce of the electric age. A f e w decades ago they underwent enough literacy and industrial fragmentation t o release aggressive individual energies. T h e close t e a m w o r k and t r i b a l l o y a l t y n o w demanded b y electrical intercom again puts the Japanese i n positive relation t o their ancient traditions. O u r o w n tribal ways are m u c h too remote t o be o f any social avail. W e have begun retribalizing w i t h the same painful g r o p i n g w i t h w h i c h a preliterate society begins to read and w r i t e , and t o organize its life visually i n three-dimensional space. T h e search f o r Michael Rockefeller b r o u g h t the life o f a N e w Guinea t r i b e i n t o prominent attention i n Life 2. year ago. T h e editors explained the w a r games o f these people: The traditional enemies of the Willigiman-Wallalua are the Wittaia, a people exactly like themselves i n language, dress and custom. . . . Every week or t w o the Willigiman-Wallalua and their enemies arrange a formal battle at one of the traditional fighting grounds. I n comparison w i t h the catastrophic conflicts of "civilized" nations, these frays seem more like a dangerous field sport than true war. Each battle lasts but a single day, always stops before nightfall (because of the danger of ghosts) or if it begins to rain (no one wants to get his hair or ornaments w e t ) . The men are very accurate w i t h their weapons—they have all played war games since they were small boys—but they are equally adept at dodging, and hence are rarely hit by anything. The truly lethal part of this primitive warfare is not the formal battle but the sneak raid or stealthy ambush i n which not only men but women and children are mercilessly slaughtered. . . . This perpetual bloodshed is carried on for none of the usual reasons for waging war. N o territory is w o n or lost; no goods or prisoners seized. . . . They fight because they enthusiastically enjoy i t , because i t is to them a vital function of the complete man, and because they feel they must satisfy the ghosts of slain companions. These people, i n short, detect i n these games a k i n d o f model o f the universe, i n whose deadly gavotte they can participate t h r o u g h the ritual o f w a r games.

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Games are dramatic models of our psychological lives p r o v i d i n g release of particular tensions. T h e y are collective and p o p ular art forms w i t h strict conventions. A n c i e n t and nonliterate societies naturally regarded games as live dramatic models o f the universe or of the outer cosmic drama. T h e O l y m p i c games were direct enactments o f the agon, or struggle o f the Sun god. T h e runners moved around a track adorned w i t h the zodiacal signs i n i m i t a t i o n o f the daily c i r c u i t o f the sun chariot. W i t h games and plays that were dramatic enactments o f a cosmic struggle, the spectator role was plainly religious. T h e participation i n these rituals kept the cosmos on the r i g h t track, as w e l l as p r o v i d i n g a booster shot f o r the tribe. T h e tribe or the c i t y was a d i m replica o f that cosmos, as m u c h as were the games, the dances, and the icons. H o w art became a sort o f civilized substitute f o r magical games and rituals is the story o f the detribalization w h i c h came w i t h literacy. A r t , like games, became a mimetic echo of, and relief f r o m , the o l d magic o f total involvement. A s the audience f o r the magic games and plays became more individualistic, the role o f art and ritual shifted f r o m the cosmic to the humanly psychological, as i n Greek drama. Even the ritual became more verbal and less mimetic o r dancelike. Finally, the verbal narrative f r o m H o m e r and O v i d became a romantic literary substitute f o r the corporate l i t u r g y and group participation. M u c h of the schola r l y e f f o r t of the past c e n t u r y i n many fields has been devoted t o a minute reconstruction of the conditions o f primitive art and r i t u a l , f o r i t has been f e l t that this course offers the k e y to understanding the m i n d of p r i m i t i v e man. T h e k e y t o this understandi n g , however, is also available i n our new electric technology that is so s w i f t l y and p r o f o u n d l y re-creating the conditions and a t t i tudes o f primitive t r i b a l man i n ourselves. T h e w i d e appeal o f the games of recent times—the popular sports o f baseball and f o o t b a l l and ice hockey—seen as outer models o f inner psychological life, become understandable. A s models, they are collective rather than private dramatizations o f inner life. L i k e our vernacular tongues, all games are media o f interpersonal communication, and t h e y could have neither existence nor meaning except as extensions o f o u r immediate

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inner lives. I f w e take a tennis racket i n hand, or thirteen playing cards, w e consent to being a part o f a dynamic mechanism i n an artificially contrived situation. Is this n o t the reason w e enjoy those games most that m i m i c other situations i n our w o r k and social lives? D o n o t our favorite games provide a release f r o m the monopolistic t y r a n n y o f the social machine? I n a w o r d , does n o t Aristotle's idea o f drama as a mimetic reenactment and relief f r o m our besetting pressures apply perfectly t o all kinds o f games and dance and fun? F o r f u n or games t o be welcome, t h e y must c o n v e y an echo o f w o r k a d a y life. O n the other hand, a man or society w i t h o u t games is one sunk i n the zombie trance o f the automation. A r t and games enable us t o stand aside f r o m the material pressures o f routine and convention, observing and questioning. Games as popular art forms offer t o all an immediate means of participation i n the f u l l life o f a society, such as no single role or job can offer t o any man. Hence the contradiction i n "professional" sport. W h e n the games door opening into the free life leads i n t o a merely specialist job, everybody senses an incongruity. T h e games o f a people reveal a great deal about them. Games are a sort o f artificial paradise like Disneyland, or some U t o p i a n vision b y w h i c h w e interpret and complete the meaning o f our daily lives. I n games w e devise means o f nonspecialized participat i o n i n the larger drama o f our time. B u t f o r civilized man the idea of participation is s t r i c t l y limited. N o t f o r h i m the depth participation that erases the boundaries o f individual awareness as i n the Indian c u l t o f darshan, the mystic experience o f the physical presence o f vast numbers o f people. A game is a machine that can get i n t o action o n l y i f the players consent t o become puppets f o r a time. F o r individualist W e s t e r n man, m u c h o f his "adjustment" to society has the character of a personal surrender t o the collective demands. O u r games help b o t h t o teach us this k i n d o f adjustment and also t o provide a release f r o m i t . T h e uncertainty o f the outcomes o f our contests makes a rational excuse f o r the mechanical r i g o r o f the rules and procedures o f the game. W h e n the social rules change suddenly, then previously

Games/239 accepted social manners and rituals m a y suddenly assume the stark outlines and the arbitrary patterns o f a game. T h e Gamesmanship o f Stephen Potter speaks o f a social revolution i n E n g land. T h e English are m o v i n g t o w a r d social equality and the intense personal c o m p e t i t i o n that goes w i t h equality. T h e older rituals o f long-accepted class behavior n o w begin t o appear comic and irrational, gimmicks i n a game. Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People first appeared as a solemn manual o f social wisdom, b u t i t seemed quite ludicrous t o sophisticates. W h a t Carnegie offered as serious discoveries already seemed like a naive mechanical r i t u a l t o those beginning t o move i n a milieu o f Freudian awareness charged w i t h the psychopathology of everyday life. A l r e a d y the Freudian patterns o f perception have become an o u t w o r n code that begins t o provide the cathartic amusement o f a game, rather than a guide t o l i v i n g . T h e social practices o f one generation tend t o get codified i n t o the "game" o f the next. Finally, the game is passed o n as a joke, like a skeleton stripped o f its flesh. T h i s is especially t r u e o f periods o f suddenly altered attitudes, resulting f r o m some radically new technology. I t is the inclusive mesh of the T V image, i n particular, that spells f o r a w h i l e , at least, the d o o m o f baseball. F o r baseball is a game o f one-thing-at-a-time, fixed positions and visibly delegated specialist jobs such as belonged t o the n o w passing mechanical age, w i t h is fragmented tasks and its staff and line i n management organization. T V , as the v e r y image o f the n e w corporate and participant ways o f electric l i v i n g , fosters habits o f unified awareness and social interdependence that alienate us f r o m the peculiar style o f baseball, w i t h its specialist and positional stress. W h e n cultures change, so do games. Baseball, that had become the elegant abstract image of an industrial society l i v i n g b y split-second t i m i n g , has i n the n e w T V decade lost its psychic and social relevance f o r our n e w w a y o f life. T h e ball game has been dislodged f r o m the social center and and been conveyed t o the periphery of A m e r i c a n life. I n contrast, A m e r i c a n football is nonpositional, and any or all o f the players can s w i t c h t o any role d u r i n g play. I t is, therefore, a game that at the present is supplanting baseball i n general

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acceptance. I t agrees v e r y w e l l w i t h the new needs o f decentralized team play i n the electric age. O f f h a n d , i t m i g h t be supposed that the t i g h t t r i b a l u n i t y o f football w o u l d make i t a game that the Russians w o u l d cultivate. T h e i r devotion to ice hockey and soccer, t w o v e r y individualist forms o f game, w o u l d seem little suited t o the psychic needs o f a collectivist society. B u t Russia is still i n the main an oral, t r i b a l w o r l d that is undergoing detribalization and just n o w discovering individualism as a novelty. Soccer and ice hockey have f o r them, therefore, an exotic and U t o p i a n quality o f promise that they do n o t convey t o the W e s t . T h i s is the q u a l i t y that w e tend t o call "snob value," and we m i g h t derive some similar " v a l u e " f r o m o w n i n g race horses, polo ponies, or twelve-meter yachts. Games, therefore, can provide many varieties of satisfaction. H e r e w e are l o o k i n g at their role as media o f communication i n society as a w h o l e . Thus, poker is a game that has often been cited as the expression o f all the complex attitudes and unspoken values of a competitive society. I t calls f o r shrewdness, aggression, t r i c k e r y , and unflattering appraisals o f character. I t is said w o m e n cannot play poker w e l l because i t stimulates their curiosity, and curiosity is fatal i n poker. Poker is intensely individualist, allowi n g no place f o r kindness or consideration, b u t o n l y f o r the greatest good of the greatest number—the number one. I t is i n this perspective that i t is easy t o see w h y w a r has been called the sport of kings. For kingdoms are t o monarchs w h a t patrimonies and private income are t o the private citizen. Kings can play poker w i t h kingdoms, as the generals o f their armies do w i t h troops. T h e y can b l u f f and deceive the opponent about their resources and their intentions. W h a t disqualifies w a r f r o m being a true game is probably w h a t also disqualifies the stock market and business—the rules are not f u l l y k n o w n nor accepted b y all the players. Furthermore, the audience is too f u l l y participant i n w a r and business, just as i n a native society there is no true art because everybody is engaged i n making art. A r t and games need rules, conventions, and spectators. T h e y must stand f o r t h f r o m the over-all situation as models o f i t i n order f o r the quality o f play to persist. For " p l a y , " whether i n life or i n a wheel, implies

Games/241 interplay. There must be give and take, or dialogue, as between t w o o r more persons and groups. T h i s q u a l i t y can, however, be diminished or lost i n any k i n d o f situation. Great teams often play practice games w i t h o u t any audience at all. T h i s is not sport i n our sense, because m u c h o f the quality o f interplay, the v e r y m e d i u m o f interplay, as i t were, is the feeling of the audience. Rocket Richard, the Canadian hockey player, used to comment o n the poor acoustics o f some arenas. H e f e l t that the puck off his stick rode on the roar o f the c r o w d . Sport, as a popular art f o r m , is n o t just self-expression b u t is deeply and necessarily a means o f interplay w i t h i n an entire culture. A r t is not just play b u t an extension o f human awareness i n contrived and conventional patterns. Sport as popular art is a deep reaction to the t y p i c a l action of the society. B u t high art, on the other hand, is n o t a reaction b u t a p r o f o u n d reappraisal o f a complex cultural state. Jean Genet's The Balcony appeals t o some people as a shatteringly logical appraisal o f mankind's madness i n its o r g y o f self-destruction. Genet offers a b r o t h e l enveloped b y the holocaust of w a r and r e v o l u t i o n as an inclusive image o f human life. I t w o u l d be easy t o argue that Genet is hysterical, and that f o o t b a l l offers a more serious criticism o f life than he does. Seen as live models of complex social situations, games may lack moral earnestness, i t has t o be admitted. Perhaps there is, just f o r this reason, a desperate need f o r games i n a h i g h l y specialized industrial culture, since t h e y are the o n l y f o r m o f art accessible t o m a n y minds. Real interplay is reduced t o n o t h i n g i n a specialist w o r l d of delegated tasks and fragmented jobs. Some backward or tribal societies suddenly translated i n t o industrial and specialist forms o f mechanization cannot easily devise the antidote o f sports and games t o create countervailing force. T h e y bog d o w n i n t o g r i m earnest. M e n w i t h o u t art, and men w i t h o u t the popular arts o f games, tend t o w a r d automatism. A comment on the different kinds o f games played i n the British Parliament and the French Chamber o f Deputies w i l l r a l l y the political experience o f many readers. T h e British had the l u c k t o get the t w o - t e a m pattern i n t o the House benches, whereas the French, t r y i n g f o r centralism b y seating the deputies i n a

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semicircle facing the chair, got instead a m u l t i p l i c i t y of teams p l a y i n g a great variety o f games. B y t r y i n g f o r u n i t y , the French g o t anarchy. T h e British, b y setting u p diversity, achieved, i f anything, too m u c h u n i t y . T h e British representative, b y p l a y i n g his "side," is n o t tempted i n t o private mental effort, n o r does he have t o f o l l o w the debates u n t i l the ball is passed t o h i m . As one c r i t i c said, i f the benches d i d n o t face each other the British could n o t tell t r u t h f r o m falsehood, nor w i s d o m f r o m f o l l y , unless t h e y listened t o i t all. A n d since most of the debate must be nonsense, i t w o u l d be stupid t o listen t o all. T h e f o r m o f any game is o f first importance. Game theory, like i n f o r m a t i o n t h e o r y , has ignored this aspect of game and i n f o r m a t i o n movement. B o t h theories have dealt w i t h the i n f o r m a t i o n content o f systems, and have observed the "noise" and "deception" factors that divert data. T h i s is like approaching a painting or a musical composition f r o m the p o i n t of v i e w of its content. I n other w o r d s , i t is guaranteed t o miss the central structural core o f the experience. For as i t is the pdttern o f a game that gives i t relevance t o our inner lives, and not w h o is p l a y i n g nor the outcome o f the game, so i t is w i t h i n f o r m a t i o n movement. T h e selection o f o u r human senses employed makes all the difference say between photo and telegraph. I n the arts the particular m i x o f our senses i n the m e d i u m employed is all-important. T h e ostensible p r o g r a m content is a l u l l i n g distraction needed t o enable the structural f o r m to get t h r o u g h the barriers o f conscious attention. A n y game, like any m e d i u m o f i n f o r m a t i o n , is an extension o f the individual or the g r o u p . Its effect o n the group or individual is a reconfiguring o f the parts o f the g r o u p or individual that are not so extended. A w o r k o f art has no existence or f u n c t i o n apart f r o m its effects o n human observers. A n d art, like games o r popular arts, and like media o f communication, has the power t o impose its o w n assumptions b y setting the human c o m m u n i t y i n t o n e w relationships and postures. A r t , like games, is a translator o f experience. W h a t w e have already felt or seen i n one situation w e are suddenly given i n a new k i n d o f material. Games, likewise, shift familiar experience

Games/243 i n t o new forms, g i v i n g the bleak and the blear side o f things sudden luminosity. T h e telephone companies make tapes of the blither of boors, w h o inundate defenseless telephone operators w i t h various kinds o f r e v o l t i n g expressions. W h e n played back this becomes salutary f u n and play, and helps the operators t o maintain equilibrium. T h e w o r l d of science has become quite self-conscious about the p l a y element i n its endless experiments w i t h models of situations otherwise unobservable. Management training centers have l o n g used games as a means of developing new business percept i o n . John Kenneth Galbraith argues that business must n o w study art, f o r the artist makes models o f problems and situations that have n o t y e t emerged i n the larger m a t r i x of society, g i v i n g the artistically perceptive businessman a decade o f leeway i n his planning. I n the electric age, the closing of the gaps between art and business, or between campus and c o m m u n i t y , are part of the overall implosion that closes the ranks o f specialists at all levels. Flaubert, the French novelist of the nineteenth century, felt that the Franco-Prussian W a r c o u l d have been avoided i f people had heeded his Sentimental Education. A similar feeling has since come t o be w i d e l y held b y artists. T h e y k n o w that they are engaged i n making live models of situations that have n o t y e t matured i n the society at large. I n their artistic play, they discovered w h a t is actually happening, and thus t h e y appear t o be "ahead o f their t i m e . " Non-artists always l o o k at the present t h r o u g h the spectacles o f the preceding age. General staffs are always magnificently prepared t o fight the previous w a r . Games, then, are c o n t r i v e d and controlled situations, extensions o f group awareness that permit a respite f r o m customary patterns. T h e y are a k i n d o f talking t o itself o n the part o f society as a w h o l e . A n d t a l k i n g t o oneself is a recognized f o r m o f p l a y that is indispensable t o any g r o w t h o f self-confidence. T h e British and Americans have enjoyed d u r i n g recent times an enormous self-confidence b o r n o f the p l a y f u l spirit of f u n and games. W h e n they sense the absence o f this spirit i n their rivals, i t causes embarrassment. T o take mere w o r d l y things i n dead

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earnest betokens a defect o f awareness that is pitiable. F r o m the first days o f Christianity there g r e w a habit, i n some quarters, o f spiritual c l o w n i n g , o f " p l a y i n g the f o o l i n Christ," as St. Paul p u t i t . Paul also associated this sense o f spiritual confidence and Christianity play w i t h the games and sports o f his time. Play goes w i t h an awareness o f huge disproportion between the ostensible situation and the real stakes. A similar sense hovers over the game situation, as such. Since the game, like any art f o r m , is a mere tangible model o f another situation that is less accessible, there is always a t i n g l i n g sense of o d d i t y and f u n i n play or games that renders the v e r y earnest and v e r y serious person or society laughable. W h e n the V i c t o r i a n Englishman began to lean t o w a r d the pole o f seriousness, Oscar W i l d e and Bernard Shaw and G . K . Chesterton moved i n s w i f t l y as countervailing force. Scholars have o f t e n pointed out that Plato conceived o f play dedicated to the D e i t y , as the loftiest reach of man's religious impulse. Bergson's famous treatise o n laughter sets f o r t h the idea o f mechanism taking over life-values as the k e y t o the ludicrous. T o see a man slip o n a banana skin is t o see a rationally structured system suddenly translated i n t o a w h i r l i n g machine. Since industrialism had created a similar situation i n the society o f his time, Bergson's idea was readily accepted. H e seems n o t t o have noticed that he had mechanically t u r n e d up a mechanical metaphor i n a mechanical age i n order t o explain the v e r y unmechanical t h i n g , laughter, or "the m i n d sneezing," as W y n d h a m Lewis described i t . T h e game spirit suffered a defeat a f e w years ago over the rigged T V quiz shows. F o r one t h i n g , the b i g prize seemed t o make f u n o f money. M o n e y as store of power and skill, and expediter o f exchange, still has f o r many people the a b i l i t y t o induce a trance o f great earnestness. Movies, i n a sense, are also rigged shows. A n y play or poem or novel is, also, rigged to produce an effect. So was the T V quiz show. B u t w i t h the T V effect there is deep audience participation. M o v i e and drama do n o t permit as m u c h participat i o n as that afforded b y the mosaic mesh o f the T V image. So great was the audience participation i n the quiz shows that the

Games/245 directors of the show were prosecuted as con men. Moreover press and radio ad interests, bitter about the success o f the n e w T V medium, were delighted to lacerate the flesh o f their rivals. O f course, the riggers had been blithely unaware of the nature o f their medium, and had given i t the movie treatment of intense realism, instead of the softer m y t h i c focus proper t o T V . Charles V a n D o r e n merely g o t clobbered as an innocent bystander, and the w h o l e investigation elicited no insight i n t o the nature or effects o f the T V medium. Regrettably, i t simply provided a field day f o r the earnest moralizers. A moral p o i n t of v i e w too often serves as a substitute f o r understanding i n technological matters. T h a t games are extensions, not o f our private b u t of our social selves, and that t h e y are media o f communication, should n o w be plain. I f , finally, w e ask, " A r e games mass media?" the answer has t o be "Yes." Games are situations contrived t o p e r m i t simultaneous participation of many people i n some significant pattern o f their o w n corporate lives.

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T h e wireless telegraph was given spectacular p u b l i c i t y i n 1910 w h e n i t led t o the arrest at sea o f D r . H a w l e y H . Crippen, a U.S. physician w h o had been practicing i n L o n d o n , murdered his w i f e , buried her i n the cellar o f their home, and fled the c o u n t r y w i t h his secretary aboard the liner Montrose. T h e secretary was dressed as a b o y , and the pair traveled as M r . Robinson and son. Captain George Kendall o f the Montrose became suspicious o f the R o b i n sons, having read i n the English papers about the Crippen case. T h e Montrose was one o f the f e w ships then equipped w i t h Marconi's w i r e less. B i n d i n g his wireless operator t o secrecy, Captain Kendall sent a message t o Scotland Y a r d , and the Y a r d sent Inspector Dews o n a faster liner t o race the Montrose across the A t l a n t i c . Inspector Dews, dressed as a pilot, boarded the Montrose before i t reached p o r t , and arrested C r i p pen. Eighteen months after Crippen's ar-

Telegraph/241 rest, an act was passed i n the British Parliament m a k i n g i t c o m pulsory f o r all passenger ships t o c a r r y wireless. T h e Crippen case illustrates w h a t happens t o the best-laid plans o f mice and men i n any organization w h e n the instant speed o f i n f o r m a t i o n movement begins. T h e r e is a collapse o f delegated a u t h o r i t y and a dissolution o f the p y r a m i d and management structures made familiar i n the organization chart. T h e separation o f functions, and the division o f stages, spaces, and tasks are characteristic o f literate and visual society and o f the W e s t e r n w o r l d . These divisions tend t o dissolve t h r o u g h the action of the instant and organic interrelations of electricity. Former German Armaments minister A l b e r t Speer, i n a speech at the N u r e m b e r g trials, made some bitter remarks about the effects o f electric media o n German l i f e : " T h e telephone, the teleprinter and the wireless made i t possible f o r orders f r o m the highest levels t o be given direct t o the lowest levels, where, o n account of the absolute a u t h o r i t y behind them, they were carried out uncritically . . ." T h e tendency o f electric media is t o create a k i n d o f organic interdependence among all the institutions o f society, emphasizing de Chardin's v i e w that the discovery o f electromagnetism is t o be regarded as "a prodigious biological event." I f political and c o m mercial institutions take o n a biological character b y means o f electric communications, i t is also c o m m o n n o w f o r biologists like Hans Selye t o t h i n k o f the physical organism as a communicat i o n n e t w o r k : " H o r m o n e is a specific chemical messenger-substance, made b y an endocrine gland and secreted i n t o the b l o o d , t o regulate and coordinate the functions o f distant organs." T h i s peculiarity about the electric f o r m , that i t ends the mechanical age of individual steps and specialist functions, has a direct explanation. Whereas all previous technology (save speech, itself) had, i n effect, extended some part o f o u r bodies, electricity m a y be said to have outered the central nervous system itself, i n c l u d i n g the brain. O u r central nervous system is a unified field quite w i t h o u t segments. A s J. Z . Y o u n g writes i n Doubt and Certainty in Science: A Biologist's Reflections on the Brain (Galaxy, O x f o r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, N e w Y o r k , 1960):

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I t may be that a great part of the secret of the brain's power is the enormous opportunity provided for interaction between the effects of stimulating each part of the receiving fields. I t is this provision of interacting-places or mixingplaces that allows us to react to the world as a whole to a much greater degree than most other animals can do. Failure t o understand the organic character o f electric techn o l o g y is evident i n our continuing concern w i t h the dangers o f mechanizing the w o r l d . Rather, w e are i n great danger o f w i p i n g out our entire investment i n the preelectric technology o f the literate and mechanical k i n d b y means of an indiscriminate use o f electrical energy. W h a t makes a mechanism is the separation and extension o f separate parts o f our b o d y as hand, arm, feet, i n pen, hammer, wheel. A n d the mechanization of a task is done b y segmentation o f each part of an action i n a series o f u n i f o r m , repeatable, and movable parts. T h e exact opposite characterizes cybernation ( o r automation), w h i c h has been described as a w a y o f t h i n k i n g , as m u c h as a w a y o f doing. Instead of being concerned w i t h separate machines, cybernation looks at the p r o d u c t i o n problem as an integrated system o f i n f o r m a t i o n handling. I t is this same provision o f interacting places i n the electric media that n o w compels us t o react t o the w o r l d as a whole. A b o v e all, however, i t is the speed o f electric involvement that creates the integral w h o l e of b o t h private and public awareness. W e live today i n the A g e of I n f o r m a t i o n and of Communication because electric media instantly and constantly create a total field o f interacting events i n w h i c h all men participate. N o w , the w o r l d of public interaction has the same inclusive scope o f integral interplay that has hitherto characterized o n l y our private nervous systems. T h a t is because electricity is organic i n character and confirms the organic social b o n d b y its technological use i n telegraph and telephone, radio, and other forms. T h e simultaneity o f electric communication, also characteristic of our nervous system, makes each o f us present and accessible t o every other person i n the w o r l d . T o a large degree our co-presence everywhere at once i n the electric age is a fact o f passive, rather than active,

Telegraph/249 experience. A c t i v e l y , we,are more l i k e l y t o have this awareness w h e n reading the newspaper or w a t c h i n g a T V show. One w a y t o grasp the change f r o m the mechanical to the electric age is b y n o t i c i n g the difference between the l a y o u t o f a l i t e r a r y and a telegraph press, say between the L o n d o n Times and the Daily Express, or between The New York Times and the N e w Y o r k Daily News. I t is the difference between columns representing points o f v i e w , and a mosaic o f unrelated scraps i n a field unified b y a dateline. Whatever else there is, there can be no p o i n t o f v i e w i n a mosaic o f simultaneous items. T h e w o r l d o f impressionism, associated w i t h painting i n the late nineteenth cent u r y , f o u n d its more extreme f o r m i n the pointillisme o f Seurat and the refractions o f l i g h t i n the w o r l d of M o n e t and Renoir. T h e stipple of points o f Seurat is close t o the present technique of sending pictures b y telegraph, and close t o the f o r m of the T V image or mosaic made b y the scanning finger. A l l o f these anticipate later electric forms because, like the digital computer w i t h its multiple yes-no dots and dashes, t h e y caress the contours o f every k i n d of being b y the multiple touches of these points. E l e c t r i c i t y offers a means of getting i n t o u c h w i t h every facet of being at once, like the b r a i n itself. E l e c t r i c i t y is o n l y incidentally visual and a u d i t o r y ; i t is p r i m a r i l y tactile. A s the age o f electricity began t o establish itself i n the later nineteenth century, the entire w o r l d o f the arts began t o reach again f o r the iconic qualities o f t o u c h and sense interplay ( s y n esthesia, as i t was called) i n p o e t r y , as i n painting. T h e German sculptor A d o l f v o n H i l d e b r a n d inspired Berenson's remark that "the painter can accomplish his task o n l y b y g i v i n g tactile values t o retinal impressions." Such a program involves the e n d o w i n g o f each plastic f o r m w i t h a k i n d o f nervous system o f its o w n . T h e electric f o r m o f pervasive impression is p r o f o u n d l y tactile and organic, e n d o w i n g each object w i t h a k i n d o f unified sensibility, as the cave painting had done. T h e unconscious task o f the painter i n the n e w electric age was t o raise this fact t o the level o f conscious awareness. F r o m this time o n , the mere specialist i n any field was doomed t o the sterility and i n a n i t y that echoed

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an archaic f o r m o f the departing mechanical age. Contemporaryawareness had t o become integral and inclusive again, after centuries o f dissociated sensibilities. T h e Bauhaus school became one o f the great centers o f e f f o r t tending t o w a r d an inclusive human awareness; b u t the same task was accepted b y a race o f giants that sprang u p i n music and poetry, architecture, and painting. T h e y gave the arts o f this c e n t u r y an ascendancy over those o f other ages comparable t o that w h i c h w e have l o n g recognized as true o f m o d e r n science. D u r i n g its early g r o w t h , the telegraph was subordinate t o r a i l w a y and newspaper, those immediate extensions o f industrial p r o d u c t i o n and marketing. I n fact, once the railways began t o stretch across the continent, t h e y relied v e r y m u c h o n the telegraph f o r their coordination, so that the image o f the stationmaster and the telegraph operator were easily superimposed i n the A m e r i c a n mind. I t was i n 1844 that Samuel Morse opened a telegraph line f r o m W a s h i n g t o n t o Baltimore w i t h $30,000 obtained f r o m C o n gress. Private enterprise, as usual, w a i t e d f o r bureaucracy t o clari f y the image and goals o f the n e w operation. Once i t proved profitable, the f u r y o f private p r o m o t i o n and initiative became impressive, leading t o some savage episodes. N o n e w technology, n o t even the railroad, manifested a more rapid g r o w t h than the telegraph. B y 1858 the first cable had been laid across the A t l a n t i c , and b y 1861 telegraph wires had reached across America. T h a t each new method o f transporting c o m m o d i t y or i n f o r m a t i o n should have t o come i n t o existence i n a bitter competitive battle against p r e v i ously existing devices is n o t surprising. Each innovation is n o t o n l y commercially disrupting, b u t socially and psychologically c o r r o d i n g , as w e l l . I t is instructive t o f o l l o w the embryonic stages o f any new g r o w t h , f o r d u r i n g this period o f development i t is m u c h misunderstood, whether i t be p r i n t i n g or the motorcar o r T V . Just because people are at first oblivious o f its nature, the n e w f o r m deals some revealing blows t o the zombie-eyed spectators. T h e original telegraph line between Baltimore and W a s h i n g t o n p r o moted chess games between experts i n the t w o cities. Other lines

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were used f o r lotteries and play i n general, just as early radio existed i n isolation f r o m any commercial commitments and was, i n fact, fostered b y the amateur "hams" f o r years before i t was seized b y b i g interests. A f e w months ago John Crosby w r o t e t o the New York Herald Tribune f r o m Paris i n a w a y that w e l l illustrates w h y the " c o n t e n t " obsession o f the man o f p r i n t culture makes i t difficult f o r h i m t o notice any facts about the form o f a new m e d i u m : Telstar, as you know, is that complicated ball that whirls through space, transmitting television broadcasts, telephone messages, and everything except common sense. W h e n i t was first cast aloft, trumpets sounded. Continents would share each other's intellectual pleasures. Americans would enjoy Brigitte Bardot. Europeans would partake of the heady i n tellectual stimulation of "Ben Casey.". . . The fundamental flaw i n this communications miracle is the same one that has bugged every communications miracle since they started carving hieroglyphics on stone tablets. W h a t do you say on it? Telstar went into operation in August when almost nothing of importance was happening anywhere i n Europe. A l l the networks were ordered to say something, anything, on this miracle instrument. " I t was a new toy and they just had to use i t , " the men here say. CBS combed Europe for hot news and came up w i t h a sausage-eating contest, which was duly sent back via the miracle ball, although that particular news event could have gone by camelback without losing any of its essence. A n y innovation threatens the equilibrium o f existing organization. I n b i g i n d u s t r y n e w ideas are invited t o rear their heads so that they can be clobbered at once. T h e idea department o f a b i g firm is a sort o f lab f o r isolating dangerous viruses. W h e n one is f o u n d , i t is assigned t o a g r o u p f o r neutralizing and i m m u n i z i n g treatment. I t is comical, therefore, w h e n a n y b o d y applies t o a b i g corporation w i t h a n e w idea that w o u l d result i n a great "increase o f p r o d u c t i o n and sales." Such an increase w o u l d be a disaster f o r the existing management. T h e y w o u l d have t o make w a y f o r n e w management. Therefore, no n e w idea ever starts f r o m w i t h i n a b i g operation. I t must assail the organization f r o m outside, t h r o u g h some small b u t competing organization. I n the same w a y , the

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outering or extension o f our bodies and senses i n a " n e w invent i o n " compels the w h o l e o f our bodies and senses t o shift i n t o new positions i n order t o maintain e q u i l i b r i u m . A new "closure" is effected i n all our organs and senses, b o t h private and public, b y any new invention. Sight and sound assume n e w postures, as do all the other faculties. W i t h the telegraph, the entire method, b o t h of gathering and of presenting news, was revolutionized. N a t u r a l l y , the effects o n language and o n literary style and subject matter were spectacular. I n the same year, 1844, then, that men were p l a y i n g chess and lotteries o n the first American telegraph, Soren Kierkegaard published The Concept of Dread. T h e A g e o f A n x i e t y had begun. F o r w i t h the telegraph, man had initiated that outering or extension of his central nervous system that is n o w approaching an extension o f consciousness w i t h satellite broadcasting. T o p u t one's nerves outside, and one's physical organs inside the nervous system, or the brain, is t o initiate a situation—if n o t a concept—of dread. H a v i n g glanced at the major trauma o f the telegraph o n conscious life, n o t i n g that i t ushers i n the A g e o f A n x i e t y and o f Pervasive Dread, w e can t u r n to some specific instances o f this uneasiness and g r o w i n g jitters. Whenever any n e w medium or human extension occurs, i t creates a new m y t h f o r itself, usually associated w i t h a major figure: A r e t i n o , the Scourge of Princes and the Puppet of P r i n t i n g ; Napoleon and the trauma o f industrial change; Chaplin, the public conscience o f the movie; H i t l e r , the t r i b a l totem of radio; and Florence Nightingale, the first singer of human woe b y telegraph w i r e . Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), w e a l t h y and refined m e m ber o f the p o w e r f u l new English g r o u p engendered b y industrial power, began t o p i c k u p human-distress signals, as a y o u n g lady. T h e y were quite undecipherable at first. T h e y upset her entire w a y o f life, and couldn't be adjusted t o her image o f parents or friends or suitors. I t was sheer genius that enabled her t o translate the new diffused anxiety and dread o f life i n t o the idea o f deep human involvement and hospital r e f o r m . She began t o t h i n k , as w e l l as to live, her time, and she discovered the new f o r m u l a f o r

Telegraph/253 the electronic age: Medicare. Care of the b o d y became balm f o r the nerves i n the age that had extended its nervous system outside itself f o r the first time i n human history. T o p u t the Florence Nightingale story i n new media terms is quite simple. She arrived on a distant scene where controls f r o m the L o n d o n center were o f the c o m m o n pre-electric hierarchical pattern. M i n u t e division and delegation of functions and separation o f powers, normal i n m i l i t a r y and industrial o r ganization then and l o n g afterward, created an imbecile system o f waste and inefficiency Which f o r the first time got reported daily b y telegraph. T h e legacy of literacy and visual fragmentat i o n came home t o roost every day o n the telegraph w i r e : I n England f u r y succeeded fury. A great storm of rage, humiliation, and despair had been gathering through the terrible winter of 1854-1855. For the first time i n history, through reading the dispatches of Russell, the public had realized " w i t h what majesty the British soldier fights." A n d these heroes were dead. The men who had stormed the heights of Alma, charged w i t h the Light Brigade at Balaclava . . . had perished of hunger and neglect. Even horses which had taken part i n the Charge of the Light Brigade had starved to death. (Lonely Crusader, Cecil Woodham-Smith, M c G r a w - H i l l ) T h e horrors that W i l l i a m H o w a r d Russell relayed b y w i r e t o The Times were n o r m a l i n British m i l i t a r y life. H e was the first w a r correspondent, because the telegraph gave that immediate and inclusive dimension o f " h u m a n interest" t o news that does n o t belong t o a " p o i n t o f v i e w . " I t is merely a comment o n our absentmindedness and general indifference that after more than a c e n t u r y o f telegraph news r e p o r t i n g , n o b o d y has seen that " h u m a n i n terest" is the electronic or depth dimension of immediate i n v o l v e ment i n news. W i t h telegraph, there ended that separation of interests and division o f faculties that are certainly n o t w i t h o u t their magnificent monuments of t o i l and ingenuity. B u t w i t h telegraph, came the integral insistence and wholeness o f Dickens, and o f Florence Nightingale, and o f H a r r i e t Beecher Stowe. T h e electric gives p o w e r f u l voices t o the weak and suffering, and sweeps aside the bureaucratic specialisms and job descriptions of the m i n d tied

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t o a manual of instructions. T h e " h u m a n interest" dimension is simply that of immediacy o f participation i n the experience o f others that occurs w i t h instant i n f o r m a t i o n . People become instant, too, i n their response o f p i t y or o f f u r y w h e n they must share the c o m m o n extension o f the central nervous system w i t h the w h o l e o f mankind. U n d e r these conditions, "conspicuous waste" o r " c o n spicuous consumption" become lost causes, and even the hardiest o f the r i c h d w i n d l e i n t o modest ways o f t i m i d service t o m a n k i n d . A t this p o i n t , some m a y still inquire w h y the telegraph should create " h u m a n interest," and w h y the earlier press d i d not. T h e section o n T h e Press m a y help these readers. B u t there m a y also be a l u r k i n g obstacle t o perception. T h e instant all-at-onceness and total involvement o f the telegraphic f o r m still repels some literary sophisticates. F o r them, visual c o n t i n u i t y and fixed " p o i n t o f v i e w " render the immediate participation o f the instant media as distasteful and unwelcome as popular sports. These people are as m u c h media victims, u n w i t t i n g l y mutilated b y their studies and t o i l , as children i n a V i c t o r i a n blacking f a c t o r y . F o r m a n y people, then, w h o have had their sensibilities irremediably skewed and locked i n t o the fixed postures o f mechanical w r i t i n g and p r i n t i n g , the iconic forms o f the electric age are as opaque, or even as i n visible, as hormones t o the unaided eye. I t is the artist's job t o t r y t o dislocate older media i n t o postures that p e r m i t attention t o the new. T o this end, the artist must ever play and experiment w i t h new means o f arranging experience, even t h o u g h the majori t y o f his audience may prefer t o remain fixed i n their o l d perceptual attitudes. T h e most that can be done b y the prose c o m mentator is t o capture the media i n as m a n y characteristic and revealing postures as he can manage t o discover. L e t us examine a series of these postures o f the telegraph, as this n e w m e d i u m encounters other media like the b o o k and the newspaper. B y 1848 the telegraph, then o n l y f o u r years o l d , compelled several major A m e r i c a n newspapers t o f o r m a collective organizat i o n f o r newsgathering. T h i s e f f o r t became the basis o f the A s sociated Press, w h i c h , i n t u r n , sold news service t o subscribers. I n one sense, the real meaning of this f o r m o f the electric, instant coverage was concealed b y the mechanical overlay o f the visual

Telegraph/255 and industrial patterns o f p r i n t and p r i n t i n g . T h e specificallyelectric effect may seem t o appear i n this instance as a centralizing and compressional force. B y many analysts, the electric r e v o l u t i o n has been regarded as a continuation o f the process o f the mechanization o f m a n k i n d . Closer inspection reveals quite a d i f ferent character. F o r example, the regional press, that had had t o r e l y o n postal service and political c o n t r o l t h r o u g h the post office, q u i c k l y escaped f r o m this center-margin t y p e of m o n o p o l y b y means o f the new telegraph services. Even i n England, where short distances and concentrated population made the r a i l w a y a p o w e r f u l agent o f centralism, the m o n o p o l y o f L o n d o n was dissolved b y the invention o f the telegraph, w h i c h n o w encouraged p r o v i n cial competition. T h e telegraph freed the marginal provincial press f r o m dependence o n the b i g metropolitan press. I n the w h o l e field o f the electric r e v o l u t i o n , this pattern o f decentralization appears i n multiple guises. I t is Sir L e w i s Namier's v i e w that telephone and airplane are the biggest single cause o f trouble i n the w o r l d today. Professional diplomats w i t h delegated powers have been supplanted b y prime ministers, presidents, and f o r e i g n secretaries, w h o t h i n k t h e y c o u l d conduct all important negotiations personally. T h i s is also the problem encountered i n b i g business, where i t has been f o u n d impossible t o exercise delegated a u t h o r i t y w h e n using the telephone. T h e v e r y nature of the telephone, as all electric media, is t o compress and u n i f y that w h i c h had previously been divided and specialized. O n l y the " a u t h o r i t y o f k n o w l e d g e " w o r k s b y telephone because of the speed that creates a total and inclusive field of relations. Speed requires that the decisions made be inclusive, n o t fragmentary or partial, so that literate people t y p i c a l l y resist the telephone. B u t radio and T V , w e shall see, have the same p o w e r o f imposing an inclusive order, as o f an oral organization. Q u i t e i n contrast is the center-margin f o r m o f visual and w r i t t e n structures o f a u t h o r i t y . M a n y analysts have been misled b y electric media because o f the seeming ability o f these media t o extend man's spatial powers o f organization. Electric media, however, abolish the spatial dimension, rather than enlarge i t . B y electricity, w e everywhere resume person-to-person relations as i f on the smallest village scale. I t is a

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relation i n depth, and w i t h o u t delegation o f functions o r powers. T h e organic everywhere supplants the mechanical. Dialogue supersedes the lecture. T h e greatest dignitaries hobnob w i t h y o u t h . W h e n a group o f O x f o r d undergraduates heard that R u d y a r d K i p l i n g received ten shillings f o r every w o r d he w r o t e , t h e y sent h i m ten shillings b y telegram d u r i n g their meeting: "Please send us one o f y o u r v e r y best w o r d s . " Back came the w o r d a f e w minutes later: " T h a n k s . " T h e hybrids o f electricity and the older mechanics have been numerous. Some o f them, such as the phonograph and the movie, are discussed elsewhere i n this volume. T o d a y the w e d d i n g o f mechanical and electric technology draws t o a close, w i t h T V replacing the movie and Telstar threatening the wheel. A c e n t u r y ago the effect o f the telegraph was t o send the presses racing faster, just as the application of the electric spark was t o make possible the internal-combustion engine w i t h its instant precision. Pushed further, however, the electric principle everywhere dissolves the mechanical technique o f visual separation and analysis o f f u n c tions. Electronic tapes w i t h exactly synchronized i n f o r m a t i o n replace the o l d lineal sequence o f the assembly line. Acceleration is a f o r m u l a f o r dissolution and b r e a k d o w n i n any organization. Since the entire mechanical technology o f the W e s t e r n w o r l d has been wedded t o electricity, i t has pushed t o w a r d higher speeds. A l l the mechanical aspects of our w o r l d seem to probe t o w a r d self-liquidation. T h e U n i t e d States had b u i l t up a large degree o f central political controls t h r o u g h the interplay o f the railway, the post office, and the newspaper. I n 1848 the Postmaster General w r o t e , i n his report, that newspapers have "always been esteemed o f so m u c h importance t o the public, as the best means o f disseminating intelligence among the people, that the lowest rate has always been afforded f o r the purpose o f encouraging their c i r c u l a t i o n . " T h e telegraph q u i c k l y weakened this center-margin pattern and, more i m p o r t a n t , b y intensifying the volume o f news, i t greatly weakened the role o f editorial opinions. N e w s has steadily overtaken views as a shaper of public attitudes, t h o u g h f e w examples of this change are quite so striking as the sudden g r o w t h of the Florence N i g h t i n g a l e image i n the British

Telegraph/251 w o r l d . A n d yet n o t h i n g has been more misunderstood than the p o w e r of the telegraph i n this matter. Perhaps the most decisive feature is this. T h e natural dynamic of the book and, also, newspaper is to create a unified national o u t l o o k on a centralized pattern. A l l literate people, therefore, experience a desire f o r an extension of the most enlightened opinions i n a u n i f o r m horizontal and homogeneous pattern t o the "most b a c k w a r d areas," and to the least literate minds. T h e telegraph ended that hope. I t decentralized the newspaper w o r l d so t h o r o u g h l y that u n i f o r m national views were quite impossible, even before the C i v i l W a r . Perhaps an even more i m p o r t a n t consequence of the telegraph was that i n America the l i t e r a r y talent was d r a w n into journalism, rather than into the b o o k medium. Poe and T w a i n and H e m i n g w a y are examples of w r i t e r s w h o c o u l d find neither training nor outlet save t h r o u g h the newspaper. I n Europe, on the other hand, the numerous small national groups presented a discontinuous mosaic that the telegraph merely intensified. T h e result was that the telegraph i n Europe strengthened the position of the book, and f o r c e d even the press t o assume a l i t e r a r y character. N o t least o f the developments since the telegraph has been the weather forecast, perhaps the most p o p u l a r l y participative of all the human interest items i n the daily press. I n the early days of telegraph, rain created problems i n the g r o u n d i n g o f wires. These problems d r e w attention t o weather dynamics. One report i n Canada i n 1883 stated: " I t was early discovered that w h e n the w i n d at M o n t r e a l was f r o m the East or N o r t h - E a s t , rain storms traveled f r o m the W e s t , and the stronger the land current, the faster came the rain f r o m the opposite d i r e c t i o n . " I t is clear that telegraph, b y p r o v i d i n g a w i d e sweep of instant information, c o u l d reveal meteorological patterns of force quite beyond observation b y pre-electric man.

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T h e comments o f Robert L i n c o l n O'Brien, w r i t i n g i n the Atlantic Monthly i n 1904, indicate a r i c h field o f social material that still remains unexplored. For example: The invention of the typewriter has given a tremendous impetus to the dictating habit. . . . This means not only greater diffuseness . . . but i t also brings forward the point of view of the one who speaks. There is the disposition on the part of the talker to explain, as if watching the facial expression of his hearers to see how far they are following. This attitude is not lost when his audience is following. I t is no uncommon thing i n the typewriting booths at the Capitol i n Washington to see Congressmen in dictating letters use the most vigorous gestures as i f the oratorical methods of persuasion could be transmitted to the printed page. I n 1882, ads proclaimed that the t y p e w r i t e r could be used as an aid i n learning t o read, w r i t e , spell, and punctuate. N o w , eighty

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years later, the t y p e w r i t e r is used o n l y i n experimental classrooms. T h e ordinary classroom still holds the t y p e w r i t e r at bay as a merely attractive and distractive t o y . B u t poets like Charles Olson are eloquent i n proclaiming the power o f the t y p e w r i t e r to help the poet t o indicate exactly the breath, the pauses, the suspension, even, o f syllables, the juxtaposition, even, o f parts of phrases w h i c h he intends, observing that, f o r the first time, the poet has the stave and the bar that the musician has had. T h e same k i n d o f autonomy and independence w h i c h Charles Olson claims that the t y p e w r i t e r confers o n the voice o f the poet was claimed f o r the t y p e w r i t e r b y the career w o m a n of fifty years ago. British w o m e n were reputed t o have developed a " t w e l v e p o u n d l o o k " w h e n t y p e w r i t e r s became available f o r sixty dollars or so. T h i s look was i n some w a y related t o the V i k i n g gesture o f Ibsen's N o r a Helmer, w h o slammed the door of her doll's house and set off on a quest o f vocation and soul-testing. T h e age of the i r o n w h i m had begun. T h e reader w i l l recall earlier mention that w h e n the first wave o f female typists h i t the business office i n the 1890s, the cusp i d o r manufacturers read the sign o f doom. T h e y were r i g h t . M o r e important, the u n i f o r m ranks o f fashionable lady typists made possible a r e v o l u t i o n i n the garment industry. W h a t she w o r e , every farmer's daughter wanted t o wear, f o r the t y p i s t was a popular figure o f enterprise and skill. She was a style-maker w h o was also eager t o f o l l o w styles. A s m u c h as the t y p e w r i t e r , the t y p i s t brought i n t o business a new dimension o f the u n i f o r m , the homogeneous, and the continuous that has made the t y p e w r i t e r indispensable t o every aspect o f mechanical industry. A modern battleship needs dozens o f t y p e w r i t e r s f o r ordinary operations. A n army needs more typewriters than medium and l i g h t a r t i l l e r y pieces, even i n the field, suggesting that the t y p e w r i t e r n o w fuses the functions o f the pen and s w o r d . B u t the effect o f the t y p e w r i t e r is n o t all o f this k i n d . I f the t y p e w r i t e r has contributed greatly to the familiar forms o f the homogenized specialism and fragmentation that is p r i n t culture, i t has also caused an integration of functions and the creation o f m u c h private independence. G . K . Chesterton demurred about

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this new independence as a delusion, remarking that " w o m e n refused to be dictated t o and w e n t out and became stenographers." T h e poet or novelist n o w composes o n the t y p e w r i t e r . T h e t y p e w r i t e r fuses composition and publication, causing an entirely new attitude to the w r i t t e n and printed w o r d . Composing o n the t y p e w r i t e r has altered the forms of the language and o f literature i n ways best seen i n the later novels o f H e n r y James that were dictated to Miss Theodora Bosanquet, w h o t o o k them d o w n , n o t b y shorthand, b u t o n a t y p e w r i t e r . H e r memoir, Henry James at Work, should have been f o l l o w e d b y other studies o f h o w the t y p e w r i t e r has altered English verse and prose, and, indeed, the v e r y mental habits, themselves, of w r i t e r s . W i t h H e n r y James, the t y p e w r i t e r had become a confirmed habit b y 1907, and his new style developed a sort o f free, i n cantatory quality. H i s secretary tells o f h o w he f o u n d dictating n o t o n l y easier b u t more inspiring than composing b y hand: " I t all seems to be so m u c h more effectively and unceasingly pirfled out of me i n speech than i n w r i t i n g , " he t o l d her. Indeed, he became so attached t o the sound of his t y p e w r i t e r that, o n his deathbed, H e n r y James called f o r his R e m i n g t o n t o be w o r k e d near his bedside. Just h o w m u c h the t y p e w r i t e r has contributed b y its u n justified right-hand margin to the development of vers libre w o u l d be hard to discover, b u t free verse was really a recovery o f spoken, dramatic stress i n poetry, and the t y p e w r i t e r encouraged exactly this quality. Seated at the t y p e w r i t e r , the poet, m u c h i n the manner o f the jazz musician, has the experience of performance as composition. I n the nonliterate w o r l d , this had been the situation o f the bard or minstrel. H e had themes, b u t no text. A t the t y p e w r i t e r , the poet commands the resources o f the p r i n t i n g press. T h e machine is like a public-address system immediately at hand. H e can shout or whisper or whistle, and make f u n n y typographic faces at the audience, as does E. E. Cummings i n this sort o f verse: I n Justspring when the w o r l d is m u d luscious the little

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and wee

and eddieandbill come running f r o m marbles and piracies and it's spring when the world is puddle wonderful the queer old baloonman whistles far and wee and bettyandisbel come dancing from hop-scotch and jump-rope and it's spring and the goat footed baloonman whistles far and wee E. E. Cummings is here using the t y p e w r i t e r t o provide a poem w i t h a musical score f o r choral speech. T h e older poet, separated f r o m the p r i n t f o r m b y various technical stages, c o u l d enjoy none of the freedom o f oral stress provided b y the t y p e w r i t e r . T h e poet at the t y p e w r i t e r can do N j i n s k y leaps or Chaplin-like shuffles and wiggles. Because he is an audience f o r his o w n mechanical audacities, he never ceases t o react t o his o w n performance. Composing o n the t y p e w r i t e r is like f l y i n g a kite. T h e E. E. Cummings poem, w h e n read aloud w i t h w i d e l y v a r y i n g stresses and paces, w i l l duplicate the perceptual process o f its t y p e w r i t i n g creator. H o w Gerard M a n l e y H o p k i n s w o u l d have loved to have had a t y p e w r i t e r t o compose on! People w h o feel that poetry is f o r the eye and is t o be read silently can scarcely get anywhere w i t h H o p k i n s or Cummings. Read aloud, such p o e t r y becomes quite natural. P u t t i n g first names i n l o w e r case, as "eddieandbill," bothered the literate people of f o r t y years ago. I t was supposed t o .

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E l i o t and Pound used the t y p e w r i t e r f o r a great variety o f central effects i n their poems. A n d w i t h them, too, the t y p e w r i t e r was an oral and mimetic instrument that gave them the colloquial freedom of the w o r l d of jazz and ragtime. Most colloquial and jazzy of all Eliot's poems, Sweeney Agonistes, i n its first appearance i n p r i n t , carried the note: " F r o m W a n n a G o H o m e Baby?" T h a t the t y p e w r i t e r , w h i c h carried the Gutenberg technolo g y into every n o o k and cranny o f our culture and economy should, also, have given o u t w i t h these opposite oral effects is a characteristic reversal. Such a reversal o f f o r m happens i n all extremes o f advanced technology, as w i t h the wheel today. As expediter, the t y p e w r i t e r b r o u g h t w r i t i n g and speech and publication into close association. A l t h o u g h a merely mechanical f o r m , i t acted i n some respects as an implosion, rather than an explosion. I n its explosive character, c o n f i r m i n g the existing procedures of moveable types, the t y p e w r i t e r had an immediate effect i n regulating spelling and grammar. T h e pressure of Gutenberg techn o l o g y t o w a r d " c o r r e c t " or u n i f o r m spelling and grammar was felt at once. T y p e w r i t e r s caused an enormous expansion i n the sale o f dictionaries. T h e y also created the innumerable overstuffed files that led t o the rise of the file-cleaning companies i n our time. A t first, however, the t y p e w r i t e r was n o t seen as indispensable t o business. T h e personal t o u c h of the hand-penned letter was c o n sidered so i m p o r t a n t that the t y p e w r i t e r was ruled o u t o f c o m mercial use b y the pundits. T h e y thought, however, that i t m i g h t be of use t o authors, clergymen, and telegraph operators. Even newspapers were l u k e w a r m about this machine f o r some time. Once any part of the economy feels a step-up i n pace, the rest of the economy has to f o l l o w suit. Soon, no business could be indifferent t o the greatly increased pace set b y the t y p e w r i t e r . I t was the telephone, paradoxically, that sped the commercial adoption o f the t y p e w r i t e r . T h e phrase "Send me a memo o n that," repeated into millions of phones daily, helped t o create the huge expansion of the t y p i s t f u n c t i o n . N o r t h c o t e Parkinson's l a w that " w o r k expands so as t o fill the time available f o r its c o m p l e t i o n " is precisely the zany dynamic p r o v i d e d b y the telephone. I n no

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time at all, the telephone expanded the w o r k t o be done on the t y p e w r i t e r to huge dimensions. Pyramids o f paperwork rise on the basis o f a small telephone n e t w o r k inside a single business. L i k e the t y p e w r i t e r , the telephone fuses functions, enabling the call-girl, f o r example, t o be her o w n procurer and madam. N o r t h c o t e Parkinson had discovered that any business or bureaucratic structure functions b y itself, independently of "the w o r k t o be done." T h e number o f personnel and "the q u a l i t y o f the w o r k are not related t o each other at a l l . " I n any given structure, the rate o f staff accumulation is n o t related t o the w o r k done b u t to the intercommunication among the staff, itself. ( I n other words, the medium is the message.) Mathematically stated, Parkinson's L a w says that the rate of accumulation of office staff per annum w i l l be between 5.17 per cent and 6.56 per cent, "irrespective of any variation i n the amount o f w o r k ( i f a n y ) to be done." " W o r k to be done," o f course, means the transformation o f one k i n d o f material energy i n t o some new f o r m , as trees i n t o lumber or paper, or clay i n t o bricks or plates, or metal i n t o pipe. I n terms o f this k i n d o f w o r k , the accumulation of office personnel in a navy, f o r example, goes up as the number o f ships goes d o w n . W h a t Parkinson carefully hides f r o m himself and his readers is simply the fact that i n the area o f i n f o r m a t i o n movement, the main " w o r k to be done" is actually the movement of i n f o r m a t i o n . T h e mere interrelating o f people b y selected i n f o r m a t i o n is n o w the principal source o f w e a l t h i n the electric age. I n the preceding mechanical age, w o r k had n o t been like that at all. W o r k had meant the processing of various materials b y assembly-line f r a g mentation of operations and hierarchically delegated a u t h o r i t y . Electric power circuits, i n relation t o the same processing, eliminate b o t h the assembly line and the delegated a u t h o r i t y . Especially w i t h the computer, the w o r k effort is applied at the " p r o g r a m m i n g " level, and such e f f o r t is one of i n f o r m a t i o n and knowledge. I n the decision-making and "make happen" aspect of the w o r k operation, the telephone and other such speed-ups of i n f o r m a t i o n have ended the divisions o f delegated a u t h o r i t y i n favor of the " a u t h o r i t y of knowledge." I t is as i f a symphony composer, instead

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o f sending his manuscript t o the printer and thence t o the conductor and to the individual members o f the orchestra, were t o compose d i r e c t l y o n an electronic instrument that w o u l d render each note or theme as i f on the appropriate instrument. T h i s w o u l d end at once all the delegation and specialism of the symphony orchestra that makes i t such a natural model o f the mechanical and industrial age. T h e t y p e w r i t e r , w i t h regard t o the poet or novelist, comes v e r y close t o the promise o f electronic music, insofar as i t compresses or unifies the various jobs o f poetic composition and publication. T h e historian Daniel Boorstin was scandalized b y the fact that celebrity i n our i n f o r m a t i o n age was n o t due t o a person's having done a n y t h i n g b u t simply t o his being k n o w n f o r being w e l l k n o w n . Professor Parkinson is scandalized that the structure o f human w o r k n o w seems to be quite independent of any job t o be done. As an economist, he reveals the same i n c o n g r u i t y and comedy, as between the o l d and the new, that Stephen Potter does i n his Gamesmanship. B o t h have revealed the h o l l o w m o c k e r y o f " g e t t i n g ahead i n the w o r l d , " i n its o l d sense. N e i t h e r honest toil nor clever p l o y w i l l serve t o advance the eager executive. T h e reason is simple. Positional warfare is finished, b o t h i n private and corporate action. I n business, as i n society, " g e t t i n g o n " m a y mean getting out. T h e r e is no "ahead" i n a w o r l d that is an echo chamber o f instantaneous celebrity. T h e t y p e w r i t e r , w i t h its promise o f careers f o r the N o r a Helmers o f the West, has really t u r n e d out t o be an elusive p u m p k i n coach, after all.

27 Tk

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ine leiepnOne

Sounding Brass or Tinkling ^vmhnl? *

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T h e readers o f the N e w Y o r k Evening Telegram were t o l d i n 1904: " P h o n y i n l plies that a t h i n g so qualified has n o more substance than a telephone talk w i t h a supP°sititious f r i e n d . " T h e f o l k l o r e o f the telephone i n song and story has been aug¬ mented i n the memoirs o f Jack Paar, w h o writes that his resentment t o w a r d the telephone began w i t h the singing telegram. H e tells h o w he g o t a call f r o m a w o m a n w h o said she was so lonesome she had been taking a bath three times a day i n hopes that the phone w o u l d r i n g . James Joyce i n Finnegans W a k e headlined T E L E V I S I O N K I L L S T E L E P H O N Y I N B R O T H E R S B R O I L , i n t r o d u c i n g a major theme i n the battle o f the technologically extended senses that has, indeed, been raging t h r o u g h our culture f o r more than a decade. W i t h the telephone, there occurs the extension o f ear and voice that is a k i n d o f extra sensory perception. W i t h television came the extension o f the sense

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o f t o u c h or of sense interplay that even more intimately involves the entire sensorium. T h e child and the teenager understand the telephone, embraci n g the c o r d and the ear-mike as i f they were beloved pets. W h a t w e call "the French phone," the u n i o n of mouthpiece and earphone i n a single instrument, is a significant indication of the French liaison of the senses that English-speaking people keep f i r m l y separate. French is "the language o f l o v e " just because i t unites voice and ear i n an especially close w a y , as does the telephone. So i t is quite natural t o kiss via phone, b u t n o t easy to visualize while phoning. N o more unexpected social result o f the telephone has been observed than its elimination o f the r e d - l i g h t district and its creat i o n of the call-girl. T o the b l i n d , all things are unexpected. T h e f o r m and character o f the telephone, as o f all electric technology, appear f u l l y i n this spectacular development. T h e prostitute was a specialist, and the call-girl is not. A "house" was n o t a home; b u t the call-girl n o t o n l y lives at home, she may be a m a t r o n . T h e p o w e r of the telephone t o decentralize every operation and t o end positional warfare, as w e l l as localized prostitution, has been f e l t b u t not understood b y every business i n the land. T h e telephone, i n the case o f the call-girl, is like the t y p e w r i t e r that fuses the functions o f composition and publication. T h e call-girl dispenses w i t h the procurer and the madam. She has t o be an articulate person o f varied conversation and social accomplishments since she is expected t o be able t o j o i n any company on a basis o f social equality. I f the t y p e w r i t e r has splintered w o m a n f r o m the home and t u r n e d her into a specialist i n the office, the telephone gave her back t o the executive w o r l d as a general means o f harmony, an invitation t o happiness, and a sort o f combined confessional-and-wailing w a l l f o r the immature A m e r i c a n executive. T h e t y p e w r i t e r and the telephone are most unidentical twins that have taken over the revamping o f the A m e r i c a n g i r l w i t h technological ruthlessness and thoroughness. Since all media are fragments o f ourselves extended i n t o the public domain, the action u p o n us o f any one m e d i u m tends

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to b r i n g the other senses into play i n a n e w relation. As w e read, w e provide a sound t r a c k f o r the printed w o r d ; as w e listen t o the radio, w e provide a visual accompaniment. W h y can w e n o t visualize w h i l e telephoning? A t once the reader w i l l protest, " B u t I do visualize on the telephone!" W h e n he has a chance t o t r y the experiment deliberately, he w i l l find that he simply can't visualize w h i l e phoning, t h o u g h all literate people t r y t o do so and, therefore, believe they are succeeding. B u t that is n o t w h a t most irritates the literate and visualizing Westerner about the telephone. Some people can scarcely talk t o their best friends o n the phone w i t h o u t becoming angry. T h e telephone demands complete participation, unlike the w r i t t e n and printed page. A n y literate man resents such a heavy demand f o r his total attention, because he has l o n g been accustomed t o fragmentary attention. Similarly, literate man can learn t o speak other languages o n l y w i t h great difficulty, f o r learning a language calls f o r participation o f all the senses at once. O n the other hand, our habit o f visualizing renders the literate Westerner helpless i n the nonvisual w o r l d o f advanced physics. O n l y the visceral and audile-tactile T e u t o n and Slav have the needed i m m u n i t y t o visualization f o r w o r k i n the non-Euclidean m a t h and quantum physics. W e r e w e t o teach our m a t h and physics b y telephone, even a h i g h l y literate and abstract Westerner c o u l d eventually compete w i t h the European physicists. T h i s fact does n o t interest the Bell Telephone research department, f o r l i k e any other book-oriented g r o u p t h e y are oblivious t o the telephone as a form, and study o n l y the content aspect o f w i r e service. A s already mentioned, the Shanner and W e a v e r hypothesis about I n f o r m a t i o n T h e o r y , like the Morgenstern Game T h e o r y , tends to ignore the f u n c t i o n of the f o r m as f o r m . T h u s b o t h I n f o r m a t i o n T h e o r y and Game T h e o r y have bogged d o w n i n t o sterile banalities, b u t the psychic and social changes resulting f r o m these forms have altered the w h o l e o f our lives. M a n y people feel a strong urge t o " d o o d l e " w h i l e telephoning. T h i s fact is v e r y m u c h related t o the characteristic o f this m e d i u m , namely that i t demands participation o f o u r senses and faculties. U n l i k e radio, i t cannot be used as background. Since the telephone offers a v e r y poor a u d i t o r y image, w e strengthen and complete

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i t b y the use o f all the other senses. W h e n the a u d i t o r y image is o f high definition, as w i t h radio, w e visualize the experience o r complete i t w i t h the sense of sight. W h e n the visual image is o f high definition or intensity, w e complete i t b y p r o v i d i n g sound. T h a t is w h y , w h e n the movies added sound track, there was such deep artistic upset. I n fact the disturbance was almost equal t o that caused b y the movie itself. For the movie is a rival o f the book, tending t o provide a visual track o f narrative description and statement that is m u c h fuller than the w r i t t e n w o r d . I n the 1920s a popular song was " A H A l o n e b y the Telephone, A l l A l o n e Feeling Blue." W h y should the phone create an intense feeling o f loneliness? W h y should w e feel compelled t o answer a r i n g i n g public phone w h e n w e k n o w the call cannot concern us? W h y does a phone r i n g i n g on the stage create instant tension? W h y is that tension so v e r y m u c h less f o r an unanswered phone i n a movie scene? T h e answer t o all o f these questions is simply that the phone is a participant f o r m that demands a partner, w i t h all the intensity o f electric polarity. I t simply w i l l n o t act as a background instrument like radio. A standard practical joke o f the small t o w n i n the early days o f the telephone draws attention t o the phone as a f o r m of communal participation. N o back fence could begin t o rival the degree o f heated participation made possible b y the partyline. T h e joke i n question t o o k the f o r m o f calling several people, and, i n an assumed voice, saying that the engineering department was going t o clean o u t the telephone lines: " W e recommend that y o u cover y o u r telephone w i t h a sheet o r p i l l o w case t o prevent y o u r r o o m f r o m being filled w i t h d i r t and grease." T h e jokester w o u l d then make the rounds o f his friends i n question t o enjoy their preparations and their momentary expectation o f a hiss and roar that was sure t o come w h e n the lines were b l o w n out. T h e joke n o w serves t o recall that n o t l o n g ago the phone was a new contraption, used more f o r entertainment than f o r business. T h e i n v e n t i o n of the telephone was an incident i n the larger effort o f the past century to render speech visible. Melville Bell, the father o f Alexander Graham Bell, spent his life devising a universal alphabet that he published i n 1867 under the title Visible

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Speech. Besides the aim t o make all the languages of the w o r l d immediately present t o each other i n a simple visual f o r m , the Bells, father and son, w e r e m u c h concerned t o improve the state o f the deaf. Visible speech seemed t o promise immediate means o f release f o r the deaf f r o m their prison. T h i r struggle t o perfect visible speech f o r the deaf led the Bells t o a study of the new electrical devices that yielded the telephone. I n m u c h the same w a y , the Braille system o f dots-for-letters had begun as a means o f reading m i l i t a r y messages i n darkness, then was transferred t o music, and finally t o reading f o r the b l i n d . Letters had been codified as dots f o r the fingers l o n g before the Morse Code was developed f o r telegraph use. A n d i t is relevant t o note h o w electric technology, i n like manner, had converged o n the w o r l d o f speech and language, f r o m the beginning o f electricity. T h a t w h i c h had been the first great extension of our central nervous system—the mass media o f the spoken word—was soon wedded t o the second great extension o f the central nervous system—electric technology. T h e N e w Y o r k Daily Graphic f o r M a r c h 15, 1877, p o r t r a y e d o n its f r o n t page " T h e T e r r o r s of the Telephone—The O r a t o r o f the F u t u r e . " A disheveled Svengali stands before a m i c r o phone haranguing i n a studio. T h e same m i k e is shown i n L o n d o n , San Francisco, on the Prairies, and i n D u b l i n . Curiously, the newspaper of that time saw the telephone as a rival t o the press as P. A . system, such as radio was i n fact to be fifty years later. B u t the telephone, intimate and personal, is the most removed of any m e d i u m f r o m the P. A . f o r m . T h u s w i r e - t a p p i n g seems even more odious than the reading of other people's letters. T h e w o r d "telephone" came into existence i n 1840, before Alexander Graham Bell was b o r n . I t was used t o describe a device made t o convey musical notes t h r o u g h w o o d e n rods. B y the 1870s, inventors i n many places were t r y i n g t o achieve the electrical transmission o f speech, and the A m e r i c a n Patent Office received Elisha Gray's design f o r a telephone o n the same day as Bell's, b u t an hour or t w o later. T h e legal profession benefited enormously f r o m this coincidence. B u t Bell g o t the fame, and his rivals became footnotes. T h e telephone presumed t o offer service

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t o the public i n 1877, paralleling w i r e telegraphy. T h e n e w telephone group was p u n y beside the vast telegraph interests, and W e s t e r n U n i o n moved at once t o establish c o n t r o l over the telephone service. I t is one of the ironies o f W e s t e r n man that he has never felt any concern about invention as a threat t o his w a y o f life. T h e fact is that, f r o m the alphabet t o the motorcar, W e s t e r n man has been steadily refashioned i n a slow technological explosion that has extended over 2,500 years. F r o m the time o f the telegraph o n w a r d , however, W e s t e r n man began t o live an implosion. H e began suddenly w i t h Nietzschean insouciance to play the movie of his 2,500-year explosion backward. B u t he still enjoys the results o f the extreme fragmentation o f the original components of his tribal life. I t is this fragmentation that enables h i m t o ignore causeand-effect i n all interplay o f technology and culture. I t is quite different i n B i g Business. There, tribal man is o n the alert f o r stray seeds o f change. T h a t was w h y W i l l i a m H . W h y t e c o u l d w r i t e The Organization Man as a h o r r o r story. Eating people is w r o n g . Even g r a f t i n g people i n t o the ulcer o f a b i g corporation seems w r o n g t o a n y b o d y b r o u g h t up i n literate visual fragmented freedom. " I call them u p at n i g h t w h e n their guard's d o w n , " said one senior executive. I n the 1920s, the telephone spawned a good deal o f dialogue humor that sold as gramophone records. B u t radio and the talking pictures were n o t k i n d t o the monologue, even w h e n i t was made b y W . C. Fields or W i l l Rogers. These h o t media pushed aside the cooler forms that T V has n o w b r o u g h t back on a large scale. T h e n e w race o f n i g h t - c l u b entertainers ( N e w h a r t , N i c h o l s and M a y ) have a curious early-telephone flavor that is v e r y welcome, indeed. W e can thank T V , w i t h its call f o r such high participation, that mime and dialogue are back. O u r M o r t Sahls and Shelley Bermans and Jack Paars are almost a variety o f " l i v i n g newspaper," such as was provided f o r the Chinese revolutionary masses b y dramatic teams i n the 1930s and 1940s. Brecht's plays have the same participational q u a l i t y o f the w o r l d of the comic strip and the newspaper mosaic that T V has made acceptable, as p o p art. T h e mouthpiece o f the telephone was a direct o u t g r o w t h

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o f a prolonged attempt beginning i n the seventeenth century t o m i m i c human physiology b y mechanical means. I t is v e r y m u c h i n the nature o f the electric telephone, therefore, that i t has such natural c o n g r u i t y w i t h the organic. O n the advice of a Boston surgeon, D r . C. J. Blake, the receiver of the phone was d i r e c t l y modeled on the bone and diaphragm structure o f the human ear. Bell paid m u c h attention t o the w o r k of the great H e l m h o l t z , whose w o r k covered m a n y fields. Indeed, i t was because of his c o n v i c t i o n that H e l m h o l t z had sent vowels b y telegraph that Bell was encouraged t o persevere i n his efforts. I t t u r n e d out that i t was his inadequate German that had fostered this optimistic i m pression. H e l m h o l t z had failed t o achieve any speech effects b y wire. B u t Bell argued, i f vowels could be sent, w h y n o t c o n sonants? " I thought that H e l m h o l t z , himself, had done i t , and that m y failure was due o n l y t o m y ignorance of electricity. I t was a v e r y valuable blunder. I t gave me confidence. I f I had been able t o read German i n those days I m i g h t never have commenced m y experiments!" One o f the most startling consequences o f the telephone was its i n t r o d u c t i o n of a "seamless w e b " o f interlaced patterns i n management and decision-making. I t is n o t feasible t o exercise delegated a u t h o r i t y b y telephone. T h e pyramidal structure o f j o b division and description and delegated powers cannot withstand the speed o f the phone t o by-pass all hierarchical arrangements, and t o involve people i n depth. I n the same w a y , mobile panzer divisions equipped w i t h radio telephones upset the traditional a r m y structure. A n d w e have seen h o w the news reporter l i n k i n g the printed page to the telephone and the telegraph created a unified corporate image o u t of the fragmented government departments. T o d a y the j u n i o r executive can get o n a first-name basis w i t h seniors i n different parts of the c o u n t r y . " Y o u just start telephoning. A n y b o d y can w a l k i n t o any manager's office b y telephone. B y ten o'clock of the day I h i t the N e w Y o r k office I was calling everybody b y their first names." T h e telephone is an irresistible i n t r u d e r i n time or place, so that high executives attain i m m u n i t y t o its call o n l y w h e n d i n i n g at head tables. I n its nature the telephone is an intensely personal

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f o r m that ignores all the claims o f visual p r i v a c y prized b y literate man. One firm o f stockbrokers recently abolished all private offices f o r its executives, and settled them around a k i n d of seminar table. I t was f e l t that the instant decisions that had to be made based on the continuous f l o w o f teletype and other electric media could o n l y receive group approval fast enough i f private space were abolished. W h e n on the alert, even the grounded crews o f m i l i t a r y aircraft cannot be o u t o f sight o f one another at any time. This is merely a time factor. M o r e relevant is the need f o r total involvement i n role that goes w i t h this instant structure. T h e t w o pilots of one Canadian jet fighter are matched w i t h all the care used i n a marriage bureau. A f t e r m a n y tests and l o n g experience together they are officially married b y their commanding officer " t i l l death do y o u p a r t . " T h e r e is no tongue-in-cheek about this. I t is this same k i n d o f total integration into a role that raises the hackles o f any literate man faced b y the implosive demands of the seamless w e b of electric decision-making. Freedom i n the W e s t e r n w o r l d has always taken the f o r m o f the explosive, the divisive, advancing the separation o f the individual f r o m the state. T h e reversal o f that one-way movement o u t w a r d f r o m center-to-marg i n is as clearly o w i n g to electricity as the great W e s t e r n explosion had, i n the first place, been due t o phonetic literacy. I f delegated chain-of-command a u t h o r i t y w o n ' t w o r k b y telephone b u t o n l y b y w r i t t e n instruction, w h a t sort o f a u t h o r i t y does come into play? T h e answer is simple, b u t n o t easy t o convey. O n the telephone o n l y the a u t h o r i t y o f knowledge w i l l w o r k . Delegated a u t h o r i t y is lineal, visual, hierarchical. T h e a u t h o r i t y o f knowledge is nonlineal, nonvisual, and inclusive. T o act, the delegated person must always get clearance f r o m the chain-ofcommand. T h e electric situation eliminates such patterns; such "checks and balances" are alien t o the inclusive a u t h o r i t y of knowledge. Consequently, restraints on electric absolutist power can be achieved, n o t b y the separation o f powers, b u t b y a p l u ralism o f centers. T h i s problem has arisen apropos o f the direct private line f r o m the K r e m l i n t o the W h i t e House. President Kennedy stated his preference f o r teletype over telephone, w i t h a natural W e s t e r n bias.

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T h e separation o f powers had been a technique f o r restraini n g action i n a centralist structure radiating out t o remote margins. I n an electric structure there are, so far as the time and space of this planet are concerned, no margins. There can, therefore, be dialogue o n l y among centers and among equals. T h e chainof-command pyramids cannot obtain support f r o m electric techn o l o g y . B u t i n place o f delegated power, there tends t o appear again w i t h electric media, the role. A person can n o w be reinvested w i t h all kinds o f nonvisual character. K i n g and emperor were legally endowed t o act as the collective ego o f all the private egos o f their subjects. So far, Western man has encountered the restoration of the role o n l y tentatively. H e still manages t o keep individuals i n delegated jobs. I n the cult o f the movie star, w e have allowed ourselves somnambulistically t o abandon our W e s t e r n traditions, conferring o n these jobless images a mystic role. T h e y are collective embodiments of the multitudinous private lives of their subjects. A n extraordinary instance of the p o w e r of the telephone t o involve the whole person is recorded b y psychiatrists, w h o r e p o r t that neurotic children lose all neurotic symptoms w h e n telephoni n g . The New York Times of September 7, 1949 printed an i t e m that provides bizarre testimony t o the cooling participational character o f the telephone: O n September 6, 1949, a psychotic veteran, H o w a r d B. Unrah, i n a mad rampage on the streets of Camden, N e w Jersey, killed thirteen people, and then returned home. Emergency crews, bringing up machine guns, shotguns, and tear gas bombs, opened fire. A t this point an editor on the Camden Evening Courier looked up Unruh's name i n the telephone directory and called him. U n r u h stopped firing and answered, "Hello." "This Howard?" "Yes " " W h y are you killing people?" " I don't know. I can't answer that yet. I ' l l have to talk to you later. I ' m too busy n o w . " A r t Seidenbaum, i n a recent article i n the Los Angeles "Dialectics of Unlisted Telephone N u m b e r s , " said:

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Celebrities have been hiding f o r a long time. Paradoxically, as their names and images are bloated on ever widening screens, they take increasing pains to be unapproachable in the flesh or phone. . . . Many big names never answer up to their numbers; a service takes every call, and only upon request, delivers the accumulated messages. . . . "Don't call us" could became the real area code f o r Southern California. " A l l A l o n e b y the Telephone" has come f u l l circle. I t w i l l soon be the telephone that is " a l l alone, and feeling b l u e . "

28 The Phonograph The

Toy That Shrank the National Chest

T h e phonograph, w h i c h owes its o r i g i n t o the electrical telegraph and the telephone, had n o t manifested its basically electric f o r m and f u n c t i o n u n t i l the tape recorder released i t f r o m its mechanical trappings. T h a t the w o r l d of sound is essentially a u n i fied field o f instant relationships lends i t a near resemblance t o the w o r l d o f electromagnetic waves. T h i s fact b r o u g h t the phonograph and radio i n t o early association. Just h o w obliquely the phonograph was at first received is indicated i n the observation o f John Philip Sousa, the brassband director and composer. H e c o m mented: " W i t h the phonograph vocal exercises w i l l be o u t o f vogue! T h e n w h a t o f the national throat? W i l l i t n o t weaken? W h a t o f the national chest? W i l l i t n o t shrink?"

275

One fact Sousa had grasped: T h e phonograph is an extension and amplificat i o n of the voice that m a y w e l l have d i m i n -

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ished individual vocal a c t i v i t y , m u c h as the car had reduced pedestrian a c t i v i t y . L i k e the radio that i t still provides w i t h p r o g r a m content, the phonograph is a hot medium. W i t h o u t i t , the t w e n t i e t h cent u r y as the era o f tango, ragtime, and jazz w o u l d have had a different r h y t h m . But the phonograph was involved i n many misconceptions, as one o f its early names—gramophone—implies. I t was conceived as a f o r m o f a u d i t o r y w r i t i n g (gramma-lctters). I t was also called "graphophone," w i t h the needle i n the role of pen. T h e idea o f i t as a " t a l k i n g machine" was especially popular. Edison was delayed i n his approach t o the solution o f its problems b y considering i t at first as a "telephone repeater"; that is, a storehouse of data f r o m the telephone, enabling the telephone t o " p r o vide invaluable records, instead o f being the recipient of moment a r y and fleeting communication." These words of Edison, published i n the North American Review of June, 1878, illustrate h o w the then recent telephone invention already had the power t o color t h i n k i n g i n other fields. So, the record player had to be seen as a k i n d o f phonetic r e c o r d o f telephone conversation. Hence, the names " p h o n o g r a p h " and "gramophone." Behind the immediate p o p u l a r i t y o f the phonograph was the entire electric implosion that gave such new stress and importance to actual speech r h y t h m s i n music, p o e t r y , and dance alike. Y e t the phonograph was a machine merely. I t d i d n o t at first use an electric m o t o r or circuit. B u t i n p r o v i d i n g a mechanical extension o f the human voice and the new ragtime melodies, the phonograph was propelled into a central place b y some o f the major currents o f the age. T h e fact o f acceptance of a n e w phrase, or a speech f o r m , or a dance r h y t h m is already direct evidence of some actual development to w h i c h i t is significantly related. Take, f o r example, the shift o f English i n t o an interrogative m o o d , since the arrival o f " H o w about that?" N o t h i n g could induce people to begin suddenly to use such a phrase over and over, unless there were some new stress, r h y t h m , or nuance i n interpersonal relations that gave i t relevance. I t was w h i l e handling paper tape, impressed b y Morse Code dots and dashes, that Edison noticed the sound given off w h e n

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the tape moved at high speed resembled " h u m a n talk heard indist i n c t l y . " I t then occurred t o h i m that indented tape could record a telephone message. Edison became aware of the limits of lineality and the sterility o f specialism as soon as he entered the electric field. " L o o k , " he said, "it's like this. I start here w i t h the intention o f reaching here i n an experiment, say, t o increase the speed of the A t l a n t i c cable; b u t w h e n I've arrived part w a y i n m y straight line, I meet w i t h a phenomenon, and i t leads me off i n another ^direction and develops i n t o a phonograph." N o t h i n g could more dramatically express the t u r n i n g p o i n t f r o m mechanical explosion t o electrical implosion. Edison's o w n career embodied that v e r y change i n our w o r l d , and he himself was often caught i n the confusion between the t w o forms of procedure. I t was just at the end o f the nineteenth century that the psychologist Lipps revealed b y a k i n d o f electric audiograph that the single clang o f a bell was an intensive m a n i f o l d containing all possible symphonies. I t was somewhat o n the same lines that E d i son approached his problems. Practical experience had taught h i m that embryonically all problems contained all answers w h e n one c o u l d discover a means of rendering them explicit. I n his o w n case, his determination t o give the phonograph, like the telephone, a direct practical use i n business procedures led t o his neglect o f the instrument as a means o f entertainment. Failure t o foresee the phonograph as a means o f entertainment was really a failure t o grasp the meaning of the electric r e v o l u t i o n i n general. I n o u r time w e are reconciled t o the phonograph as a t o y and a solace; b u t press, radio, and T V have also acquired the same dimension o f entertainment. Meantime, entertainment pushed t o an extreme becomes the main f o r m o f business and politics. Electric media, because o f their total " f i e l d " character, tend t o eliminate the fragmented specialties o f f o r m and f u n c t i o n that w e have l o n g accepted as the heritage of alphabet, p r i n t i n g , and mechanization. T h e brief and compressed history o f the phonograph includes all phases o f the w r i t t e n , the printed, and the mechanized w o r d . I t was the advent of the electric tape recorder that o n l y a f e w years ago released the phonograph f r o m its temporary involvement i n mechanical culture. T a p e and the l . p . record suddenly made the

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phonograph a means of access t o all the music and speech of the world. Before t u r n i n g t o the l.p. and tape-recording revolution, w e should note that the earlier period o f mechanical recording and sound reproduction had one large factor i n c o m m o n w i t h the silent picture. T h e early phonograph produced a brisk and raucous experience n o t unlike that of a M a c k Sennett movie. B u t the undercurrent o f mechanical music is strangely sad. I t was the genius o f Charles Chaplin t o have captured f o r film this sagging quality of a deep blues, and to have overlaid i t w i t h jaunty jive and bounce. T h e poets and painters and musicians o f the later nineteenth century all insist on a sort o f metaphysical melancholy as latent i n the great industrial w o r l d of the metropolis. T h e Pierrot figure is as crucial i n the p o e t r y o f L a f orgue as i t is i n the art o f Picasso or the music of Satie. Is n o t the mechanical at its best a remarkable approximation t o the organic? A n d is n o t a great industrial civilization able t o produce a n y t h i n g i n abundance f o r everybody? T h e answer is "Yes." B u t Chaplin and the Pierrot poets and painters and musicians pushed this logic all the w a y t o reach the image o f Cyrano de Bergerac, w h o was the greatest lover o f all, b u t w h o was never permitted the r e t u r n o f his love. T h i s w e i r d image o f Cyrano, the unloved and unlovable lover, was caught up i n the phonograph c u l t o f the blues. Perhaps i t is misleading t o t r y to derive the o r i g i n o f the blues f r o m N e g r o f o l k music; however, Constant Lambert, English c o n d u c t o r - c o m poser, i n his Music Ho!, provides an account o f the blues that preceded the jazz o f the p o s t - W o r l d W a r I . H e concludes that the great flowering of jazz i n the twenties was a popular response to the h i g h b r o w richness and orchestral subtlety o f the DebussyDelius period. Jazz w o u l d seem t o be an effective bridge between h i g h b r o w and l o w b r o w music, m u c h as Chaplin made a similar bridge f o r pictorial art. L i t e r a r y people eagerly accepted these bridges, and Joyce g o t Chaplin i n t o Ulysses as B l o o m , just as E l i o t got jazz i n t o the r h y t h m s o f his early poems. Chaplin's c l o w n - C y r a n o is as m u c h a part of a deep melanc h o l y as Laforgue's or Satie's Pierrot art. Is i t n o t inherent i n the v e r y t r i u m p h of the mechanical and its omission o f the human?

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C o u l d the mechanical reach a higher level than the talking machine w i t h its mime of voice and dance? D o n o t T . S. Eliot's famous lines about the t y p i s t of the jazz age capture the entire pathos o f the age o f Chaplin and the ragtime blues? W h e n lovely woman stoops to folly and Paces about her room again, alone, She smoothes her hair w i t h automatic hand, A n d puts a record on the gramophone. Read as a Chaplin-like comedy, Eliot's P r u f r o c k makes ready sense. P r u f r o c k is the complete Pierrot, the little puppet o f the mechanical civilization that was about t o do a flip i n t o its electric phase. I t w o u l d be difficult t o exaggerate the importance of complex mechanical forms such as f i l m and phonograph as the prelude t o the automation o f human song and dance. As this automation o f human voice and gesture had approached perfection, so the human w o r k force approached automation. N o w i n the electric age the assembly line w i t h its human hands disappears, and electric automation brings about a w i t h d r a w a l o f the w o r k force f r o m industry. Instead of being automated themselves—fragmented i n task and function—as had been the tendency under mechanization, men i n the electric age move increasingly t o involvement i n diverse jobs simultaneously, and t o the w o r k o f learning, and t o the p r o g r a m m i n g of computers. T h i s revolutionary logic inherent i n the electric age was made f a i r l y clear i n the early electric forms o f telegraph and telephone that inspired the " t a l k i n g machine." These n e w forms that d i d so m u c h t o recover the vocal, a u d i t o r y , and mimetic w o r l d that had been repressed b y the p r i n t e d w o r d , also inspired the strange n e w r h y t h m s o f "the jazz age," the various forms o f syncopation and symbolist discontinuity that, like r e l a t i v i t y and quantum physics, heralded the end o f the Gutenberg era w i t h its smooth, u n i f o r m lines o f t y p e and organization. T h e w o r d "jazz" comes f r o m the French jaser, t o chatter. Jazz is, indeed, a f o r m o f dialogue among instrumentalists and dancers alike. T h u s i t seemed t o make an abrupt break w i t h the h o m o -

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geneous and repetitive r h y t h m s o f the smooth waltz. I n the age o f Napoleon and L o r d B y r o n , w h e n the w a l t z was a n e w f o r m , i t was greeted as a barbaric f u l f i l l m e n t o f the Rousseauistic dream o f the noble savage. Grotesque as this idea n o w appears, i t is really a most valuable clue t o the d a w n i n g mechanical age. T h e i m personal choral-dancing o f the older, c o u r t l y pattern was abandoned w h e n the waltzers held each other i n a personal embrace. T h e w a l t z is precise, mechanical, and m i l i t a r y , as its history manifests. F o r a w a l t z t o y i e l d its f u l l meaning, there must be m i l i t a r y dress. " T h e r e was a sound of r e v e l r y b y n i g h t " was h o w L o r d B y r o n referred t o the w a l t z i n g before W a l t e r l o o . T o the eighteenth century and t o the age o f Napoleon, the citizen armies seemed t o be an individualistic release f r o m the feudal f r a m e w o r k o f c o u r t l y hierarchies. Hence the association of w a l t z w i t h noble savage, meaning no more than freedom f r o m status and hierarchic deference. T h e waltzers were all u n i f o r m and equal, having free movement i n any part of the hall. T h a t this was the Romantic idea o f the life o f the noble savage n o w seems o d d , b u t the Romantics k n e w as little about real savages as t h e y d i d about assembly lines. I n our o w n c e n t u r y the arrival o f jazz and ragtime was also heralded as the invasion o f the b o t t o m - w a g g i n g native. T h e indignant tended t o appeal f r o m jazz t o the beauty o f the mechanical and repetitive w a l t z that had once been greeted as pure native dancing. I f jazz is considered as a break w i t h mechanism i n the direction o f the discontinuous, the participant, the spontaneous and improvisational, i t can also be seen as a r e t u r n t o a sort o f oral poetry i n w h i c h performance is b o t h creation and composit i o n . I t is a t r u i s m among jazz performers that recorded jazz is "as stale as yesterday's newspaper." Jazz is alive, like conversation; and like conversation i t depends u p o n a repertory o f available themes. B u t performance is composition. Such performance i n sures maximal participation among players and dancers alike. Put i n this w a y , i t becomes obvious at once that jazz belongs i n that f a m i l y of mosaic structures that reappeared i n the W e s t e r n w o r l d w i t h the w i r e services. I t belongs w i t h symbolism i n poetry, and w i t h the m a n y allied forms i n painting and i n music. T h e b o n d between the phonograph and song and dance is no

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Phonograph/2%\

less deep than its earlier relation to telegraph and telephone. W i t h the first p r i n t i n g o f musical scores i n the sixteenth century, words and music d r i f t e d apart. T h e separate virtuosity of voice and instruments became the basis o f the great musical developments o f the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. T h e same k i n d o f fragmentation and specialism i n the arts and sciences made possible m a m m o t h results i n industry and i n m i l i t a r y enterprise, and i n massive cooperative enterprises such as the newspaper and the s y m p h o n y orchestra. Certainly the phonograph as a p r o d u c t o f industrial, assemblyline organization and distribution showed little o f the electric qualities that had inspired its g r o w t h i n the m i n d o f Edison. T h e r e were prophets w h o could foresee the great day w h e n the phonograph w o u l d aid medicine b y p r o v i d i n g a medical means o f discrimination between "the sob of hysteria and the sigh o f melancholia . . . the r i n g o f w h o o p i n g cough and the hack of the consumptive. I t w i l l be an expert i n insanity, distinguishing between the laugh o f the maniac and drivel o f the idiot. . . . I t w i l l accomplish this feat i n the anteroom, w h i l e the physician is busying himself w i t h his last patient." I n practice, however, the phonograph stayed w i t h the voices o f the Signor Foghornis, the basso-tenores, robusto-profundos. Recording facilities d i d n o t presume t o t o u c h a n y t h i n g so subtle as an orchestra u n t i l after the First W a r . L o n g before this, one enthusiast looked t o the record t o r i v a l the photograph album and t o hasten the happy day w h e n " f u t u r e generations w i l l be able t o condense w i t h i n the space o f t w e n t y minutes a tone-picture of a single lifetime: five minutes o f a child's prattle, five o f the boy's exultations, five o f the man's reflections, and five f r o m the feeble utterances of the deathbed." James Joyce, somewhat later, d i d better. H e made Finnegans Wake a tone poem that condensed i n a single sentence all the prattlings, exultations, observations, and remorse o f the entire human race. H e c o u l d n o t have conceived this w o r k i n any other age than the one that produced the phonograph and the radio. I t was radio that finally injected a f u l l electric charge i n t o the w o r l d o f the phonograph. T h e radio receiver o f 1924 was

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already superior i n sound quality, and soon began t o depress the phonograph and record business. Eventually, radio restored the record business b y extending popular taste i n the direction of the classics. T h e real break came after the Second W a r w i t h the availability of the tape recorder. T h i s meant the end o f the incision recording and its attendant surface noise. I n 1949 the era o f electric h i - f i was another rescuer o f the phonograph business. T h e h i - f i quest f o r "realistic sound" soon merged w i t h the T V image as part of the recovery of tactile experience. F o r the sensat i o n o f having the p e r f o r m i n g instruments " r i g h t i n the r o o m w i t h y o u " is a striving t o w a r d the u n i o n o f the audile and tactile i n a finesse of fiddles that is i n large degree the sculptural experience. T o be i n the presence o f p e r f o r m i n g musicians is t o experience their t o u c h and handling o f instruments as tactile and kinetic, n o t just as resonant. So i t can be said that h i - f i is n o t any quest f o r abstract effects of sound i n separation f r o m the other senses. W i t h h i - f i , the phonograph meets the T V tactile challenge. Stereo sound, a f u r t h e r development, is " a l l - a r o u n d " or "wrap> a r o u n d " sound. Previously sound had emanated f r o m a single point i n accordance w i t h the bias o f visual culture w i t h its fixed p o i n t of v i e w . T h e h i - f i changeover was really f o r music w h a t cubism had been f o r painting, and w h a t symbolism had been f o r literature; namely, the acceptance o f m u l t i p l e facets and planes i n a single experience. A n o t h e r w a y t o p u t i t is t o say that stereo is sound i n depth, as T V is the visual i n depth. Perhaps i t is n o t v e r y c o n t r a d i c t o r y that w h e n a medium becomes a means o f depth experience the o l d categories o f "classical" and " p o p u l a r " or o f " h i g h b r o w " and " l o w b r o w " no longer obtain. W a t c h i n g a blue-baby heart operation o n T V is an experience that w i l l fit none of the categories. W h e n I.p. and h i - f i and stereo arrived, a depth approach t o musical experience also came i n . E v e r y b o d y lost his inhibitions about " h i g h b r o w , " and the serious people lost their qualms about popular music and culture. A n y t h i n g that is approached i n depth acquires as m u c h interest as the greatest matters. Because " d e p t h " means " i n interrelation," n o t i n isolation. D e p t h means insight, n o t p o i n t o f v i e w ;

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and insight is a k i n d o f mental involvement i n process that makes the content of the i t e m seen quite secondary. Consciousness itself is an inclusive process n o t at all dependent o n content. Consciousness does not postulate consciousness o f a n y t h i n g i n particular. W i t h regard t o jazz, l . p . b r o u g h t m a n y changes, such as the c u l t o f "real cool d r o o l , " because the greatly increased length o f a single side o f a disk meant that the jazz band could really have a l o n g and casual chat among its instruments. T h e repertory of the 1920s was revived and given n e w depth and complexity b y this n e w means. But the tape recorder i n combination w i t h l . p . revolutionized the r e p e r t o r y o f classical music. Just as tape meant the new study o f spoken rather than w r i t t e n languages, so i t b r o u g h t i n the entire musical culture o f many centuries and countries. W h e r e before there had been a n a r r o w selection f r o m periods and composers, the tape recorder, combined w i t h l . p . , gave a f u l l musical spectrum that made the sixteenth century as available as the nineteenth, and Chinese f o l k song as accessible as the H u n garian. A brief summary o f technological events relating t o the phonograph m i g h t go this w a y : T h e telegraph translated w r i t i n g i n t o sound, a fact d i r e c t l y related to the o r i g i n o f b o t h the telephone and phonograph. W i t h the telegraph, the o n l y walls l e f t are the vernacular walls that the photograph and movie and w i r e p h o t o overleap so easily. T h e electrification o f w r i t i n g was almost as b i g a step i n t o the n o n visual and auditory space as the later steps soon taken b y telephone, radio, and T V . T h e telephone: speech w i t h o u t walls. T h e phonograph: music hall w i t h o u t walls. T h e photograph: museum w i t h o u t walls. T h e electric l i g h t : space w i t h o u t walls. T h e movie, radio, and T V : classroom w i t h o u t walls. M a n the food-gatherer reappears incongruously as i n f o r m a tion-gatherer. I n this role, electronic man is no less a nomad than his paleolithic ancestors.

29 Movies The Reel World

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I n England the movie theater was o r i g i nally called " T h e Bioscope," because of its visual presentation of the actual movements o f the forms of life ( f r o m Greek bios, w a y o f l i f e ) . T h e movie, b y w h i c h w e r o l l u p the real w o r l d o n a spool i n order t o u n r o l l i t as a magic carpet of fantasy, is a spectacular w e d d i n g o f the o l d mechanical technology and the n e w elect r i c w o r l d . I n the chapter o n T h e W h e e l , the story was t o l d of h o w the movie had a l a n d o f symbolic o r i g i n i n an attempt to photograph the f l y i n g hooves o f galloping horses, f o r t o set a series o f cameras t o study animal movement is t o merge the mechanical and the organic i n a special w a y . I n the medieval w o r l d , curiously, the idea of change i n organic beings was that o f the substitution o f one static f o r m f o r another, i n sequence. T h e y imagined the life of a f l o w e r as a k i n d of cinematic strip of phases or essences. T h e movie is the total realization o f the medieval idea of

Movies/'285 change, i n the f o r m o f an entertaining illusion. Physiologists had v e r y m u c h to do w i t h the development o f film, as they d i d w i t h the telephone. O n film the mechanical appears as organic, and the g r o w t h o f a flower can be portrayed as easily and as freely as the movement o f a horse. I f the movie merges the mechanical and organic i n a w o r l d of undulating forms, i t also links w i t h the technology o f p r i n t . T h e reader i n projecting w o r d s , as i t were, has t o f o l l o w the black and w h i t e sequences o f stills that is t y p o g r a p h y , p r o v i d i n g his o w n sound track. H e tries t o f o l l o w the contours of the author's m i n d , at v a r y i n g speeds and w i t h various illusions o f understanding. I t w o u l d be difficult t o exaggerate the b o n d between p r i n t and movie i n terms o f their p o w e r to generate fantasy i n the viewer or reader. Cervantes devoted his Don Quixote entirely t o this aspect o f the p r i n t e d w o r d and its p o w e r t o create w h a t James Joyce t h r o u g h o u t Finnegans Wake designates as "the A B C E D m i n d e d , " w h i c h can be taken as "ab-said" or "ab-sent," or just alphabetically controlled. T h e business of the w r i t e r or the film-maker is t o transfer the reader or viewer f r o m one w o r l d , his own, t o another, the w o r l d created b y t y p o g r a p h y and film. T h a t is so obvious, and happens so completely, that those undergoing the experience accept i t subliminally and w i t h o u t critical awareness. Cervantes lived i n a w o r l d i n w h i c h p r i n t was as n e w as movies are i n the West, and i t seemed obvious t o h i m that p r i n t , like the images n o w o n the screen, had usurped the real w o r l d . T h e reader or spectator had become a dreamer under their spell, as René Clair said o f film i n 1926. Movies as a nonverbal f o r m of experience are like photograp h y , a f o r m of statement w i t h o u t syntax. I n fact, however, like the p r i n t and the photo, movies assume a h i g h level of literacy i n their users and prove baffling t o the nonliterate. O u r literate acceptance o f the mere movement of the camera eye as i t f o l l o w s or drops a figure f r o m v i e w is n o t acceptable to an A f r i c a n film audience. I f somebody disappears off the side o f the film, the A f r i c a n wants t o k n o w w h a t happened to h i m . A literate audience, however, accustomed t o f o l l o w i n g printed imagery line b y line

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w i t h o u t questioning the logic of lineality, w i l l accept film sequence w i t h o u t protest. I t was René Clair w h o pointed o u t that i f t w o or three people were together on a stage, the dramatist must ceaselessly motivate or explain their being there at all. B u t the film audience, like the book reader, accepts mere sequence as rational. W h a t e v e r the camera turns t o , the audience accepts. W e are transported t o another w o r l d . A s René Clair observed, the screen opens its w h i t e door into a harem of beautiful visions and adolescent dreams, compared to w h i c h the loveliest real b o d y seems defective. Yeats saw the movie as a w o r l d of Platonic ideals w i t h the film projector playing "a spume u p o n a ghostly paradigm o f things." T h i s was the w o r l d that haunted D o n Quixote, w h o f o u n d i t t h r o u g h the folio door of the n e w l y p r i n t e d romances. T h e close relation, then, between the reel w o r l d o f film and the private fantasy experience of the p r i n t e d w o r d is indispensable t o our Western acceptance o f the film f o r m . Even the film indust r y regards all of its greatest achievements as derived f r o m novels, nor is this unreasonable. F i l m , b o t h i n its reel f o r m and i n its scenario or script f o r m , is completely involved w i t h b o o k culture. A l l one need do is t o imagine f o r a moment a film based o n newspaper f o r m i n order t o see h o w close film is t o book. Theoretically, there is no reason w h y the camera should n o t be used t o p h o t o graph complex groups o f items and events i n dateline configurations, just as they are presented o n the page of a newspaper. A c t u a l l y , p o e t r y tends t o do this c o n f i g u r i n g or " b u n c h i n g " more than prose. Symbolist p o e t r y has m u c h i n c o m m o n w i t h the mosaic of the newspaper page, y e t v e r y f e w people can detach themselves f r o m u n i f o r m and connected space sufficiently t o grasp symbolist poems. Natives, on the other hand, w h o have v e r y little contact w i t h phonetic literacy and lineal p r i n t , have t o learn t o "see" photographs or film just as m u c h as w e have t o learn our letters. I n fact, after having tried f o r years to teach Africans their letters b y film, John W i l s o n o f L o n d o n University's A f r i c a n Institute f o u n d i t easier to teach t h e m their letters as a means t o film literacy. F o r even w h e n natives have learned to "see" pictures, they cannot accept our ideas o f time and space "illusions." O n

Movies/281 seeing Charlie Chaplin's The Tramp, the A f r i c a n audience concluded that Europeans were magicians w h o could restore life. T h e y saw a character w h o survived a m i g h t y b l o w o n the head w i t h o u t any indication o f being hurt. W h e n the camera shifts, they t h i n k they see trees m o v i n g , and buildings g r o w i n g or shrinki n g , because they cannot make the literate assumption that space is continuous and u n i f o r m . Nonliterate people simply don't get perspective or distancing effects o f l i g h t and shade that w e assume are innate human equipment. Literate people t h i n k of cause and effect as sequential, as i f one t h i n g pushed another along b y physical force. Nonliterate people register v e r y little interest i n this k i n d of "efficient" cause and effect, b u t are fascinated b y hidden forms that produce magical results. Inner, rather than outer, causes interest the nonliterate and nonvisual cultures. A n d that is w h y the literate W e s t sees the rest o f the w o r l d as caught i n the seamless web o f superstition. L i k e the oral Russian, the A f r i c a n w i l l n o t accept sight and sound together. T h e talkies were the d o o m of Russian f i l m - m a k i n g because, like any b a c k w a r d or oral culture, Russians have an irresistible need f o r participation that is defeated b y the addition o f sound t o the visual image. B o t h P u d o v k i n and Eisenstein denounced the sound f i l m b u t considered that i f sound were used symbolically and contrapuntally, rather than realistically, there w o u l d result less harm t o the visual image. T h e A f r i c a n insistence on g r o u p participation and on chanting and shouting d u r i n g films is w h o l l y frustrated b y sound track. O u r o w n talkies were a f u r t h e r completion o f the visual package as a mere consumer c o m m o d i t y . For w i t h silent f i l m w e automatically provide sound f o r ourselves b y w a y o f "closure" or completion. A n d w h e n i t is filled i n f o r us there is v e r y m u c h less participation i n the w o r k o f the image. A g a i n , i t has been f o u n d that nonliterates do n o t k n o w h o w t o fix their eyes, as Westerners do, a f e w feet i n f r o n t of the movie screen, or some distance i n f r o n t o f a photo. T h e result is that they move their eyes over photo or screen as t h e y m i g h t their hands. I t is this same habit of using the eyes as hands that makes European men so "sexy" t o A m e r i c a n w o m e n . O n l y an extremely

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literate and abstract society learns t o fix the eyes, as w e must learn t o do i n reading the p r i n t e d page. F o r those w h o thus fix their eyes, perspective results. T h e r e is great subtlety and synesthesia i n native art, b u t no perspective. T h e o l d belief that everyb o d y really saw i n perspective, b u t o n l y that Renaissance painters had learned h o w t o paint i t , is erroneous. O u r o w n first T V generation is r a p i d l y losing this habit o f visual perspective as a sensory modality, and along w i t h this change comes an interest i n w o r d s , n o t as visually u n i f o r m and continuous, b u t as unique w o r l d s i n depth. Hence the craze f o r puns and w o r d - p l a y , even i n sedate ads. I n terms o f other media such as the printed page, film has the power to store and to convey a great deal o f i n f o r m a t i o n . I n an instant i t presents a scene of landscape w i t h figures that w o u l d require several pages o f prose t o describe. I n the next instant i t repeats, and can go o n repeating, this detailed i n f o r m a t i o n . T h e w r i t e r , o n the other hand, has no means o f holding a mass o f detail before his reader i n a large bloc or gestalt. A s the photograph urged the painter i n the direction o f abstract, sculptural art, so the film has confirmed the w r i t e r i n verbal economy and depth symbolism where the film cannot r i v a l h i m . A n o t h e r facet o f the sheer q u a n t i t y o f data possible i n a movie shot is exemplified i n historical films like Henry V or Richard HI. H e r e extensive research w e n t i n t o the making o f the sets and costumes that any six-year-old can n o w enjoy as readily as any adult. T . S. E l i o t reported h o w , i n the m a k i n g of the film of his Murder in the Cathedral, i t was n o t o n l y necessary t o have costumes o f the period, but—so great is the precision and t y r a n n y o f the camera eye—these costumes had t o be w o v e n b y the same techniques as those used i n the t w e l f t h century. H o l l y w o o d , amidst m u c h illusion, had also t o provide authentic scholarly replicas of many past scenes. T h e stage and T V can make do w i t h v e r y r o u g h approximations, because t h e y offer an image o f l o w definition that evades detailed scrutiny. A t first, however, i t was the detailed realism o f writers like Dickens that inspired movie pioneers like D . W . Griffiths, w h o carried a c o p y o f a Dickens novel on location. T h e realistic novel,

Movies/'289 that arose w i t h the newspaper f o r m o f communal cross-section and human-interest coverage i n the eighteenth century, was a complete anticipation o f film f o r m . Even the poets t o o k u p the same panoramic style, w i t h human interest vignettes and close-ups as variant. Gray's Elegy, Burns' The Cotter's Saturday Night, W o r d s w o r t h ' s Michael, and Byron's Childe Harold are all like shooting scripts f o r some contemporary documentary film. " T h e kettle began i t . . . ." Such is the opening o f Dickens' Cricket and the Hearth. I f the modern novel came out of Gogol's The Overcoat, the m o d e r n movie, says Eisenstein, boiled u p out o f that kettle. I t should be plain that the A m e r i c a n and even British approach t o film is m u c h lacking i n that free interplay among the senses and the media that seems so natural t o Eisenstein or René Clair. For the Russian, especially, i t is easy t o approach any situation structurally, w h i c h is to say, sculpturally. T o Eisenstein, the overwhelming fact o f film was that i t is an "act of juxtaposit i o n . " B u t t o a culture i n an extreme reach of typographic condit i o n i n g , the juxtaposition must be one of u n i f o r m and connected characters and qualities. T h e r e must be no leaps f r o m the unique space o f the tea kettle to the unique space o f the k i t t e n or the boot. I f such objects appear, t h e y must be leveled off b y some c o n t i n u ous narrative, or be "contained" i n some u n i f o r m pictorial space. A l l that Salvador D a l i had t o do to create a f u r o r was t o allow the chest o f drawers or the grand piano t o exist i n its o w n space against some Sahara or A l p i n e backdrop. M e r e l y b y releasing objects f r o m the u n i f o r m continuous space o f t y p o g r a p h y w e g o t m o d e r n art and poetry. W e can measure the psychic pressure o f t y p o g r a p h y b y the uproar generated b y that release. F o r most people, their o w n ego image seems t o have been typographically conditioned, so that the electric age w i t h its r e t u r n t o inclusive experience threatens their idea o f self. These are the fragmented ones, f o r w h o m specialist t o i l renders the mere prospect of leisure or jobless security a nightmare. Electric simultaneity ends specialist learning and activity, and demands interrelation i n depth, even o f the personality. T h e case of Charlie Chaplin films helps t o illumine this problem. H i s Modern Times was taken t o be a satire o n the

290/Understanding Media fragmented character o f modern tasks. A s c l o w n , Chaplin presents the acrobatic feat i n a mime of elaborate incompetence, f o r any specialist task leaves o u t most o f our faculties. T h e c l o w n reminds us o f our fragmented state b y t a c k l i n g acrobatic or special jobs i n the spirit of the w h o l e or integral man. T h i s is the f o r m u l a f o r helpless incompetence. O n the street, i n social situations, o n the assembly line, the w o r k e r continues his compulsive t w i t c h ings w i t h an imaginary w r e n c h . B u t the mime of this Chaplin film and others is precisely that o f the r o b o t , the mechanical doll whose deep pathos i t is t o approximate so closely t o the condition o f human life. Chaplin, i n all his w o r k , d i d a puppetlike ballet of the Cyrano de Bergerac k i n d . I n order t o capture this puppetlike pathos, Chaplin (a devotee of ballet and personal f r i e n d o f Pavlova) adopted f r o m the first the f o o t postures o f classical ballet. T h u s he could have the aura o f Spectre de la Rose shimmering around his c l o w n getup. F r o m the British music hall, his first training ground, w i t h a sure t o u c h o f genius he t o o k images like that o f M r . Charles Pooter, the haunting figure o f a n o b o d y . T h i s shoddy-genteel image he invested w i t h an envelope o f f a i r y r o mance b y means o f adherence t o the classic ballet postures. T h e n e w film f o r m was perfectly adapted t o this composite image, since film is itself a j e r k y mechanical ballet o f flicks that yields a sheer dream w o r l d o f romantic illusions. B u t the film f o r m is not just a puppetlike dance o f arrested still shots, f o r i t manages t o approximate and even t o surpass real life b y means o f illusion. T h a t is w h y Chaplin, i n his silent pictures at least, was never tempted to abandon the Cyrano role o f the puppet w h o could never really be a lover. I n this stereotype Chaplin discovered the heart o f the film illusion, and he manipulated that heart w i t h easy mastery, as the key t o the pathos o f a mechanized civilization. A mechanized w o r l d is always i n the process o f getting ready t o live, and to this end i t brings t o bear the most appalling p o m p of skill and method and resourcefulness. T h e film pushed this mechanism t o the utmost mechanical verge and beyond, i n t o a surrealism o f dreams that money can b u y . N o t h i n g is more congenial t o the film f o r m than this pathos o f superabundance and power that is the dower of a puppet f o r

Movies/291 w h o m they can never be real. T h i s is the key t o The Great Gatsby that reaches its moment o f t r u t h w h e n Daisy breaks d o w n i n contemplating Gatsby's superb collection of shirts. Daisy and Gatsby live i n a tinsel w o r l d that is b o t h corrupted b y power, y e t innocently pastoral i n its dreaming. T h e movie is n o t o n l y a supreme expression of mechanism, but paradoxically i t offers as p r o d u c t the most magical o f consumer commodities, namely dreams. I t is, therefore, n o t accidental that the movie has excelled as a medium that offers poor people roles o f riches and p o w e r beyond the dreams of avarice. I n the chapter on T h e Photograph, i t was pointed o u t h o w the press p h o t o i n particular had discouraged the really r i c h f r o m the paths o f conspicuous consumption. T h e life o f display that the photo had taken f r o m the r i c h , the movie gave t o the poor w i t h lavish hand: Oh, lucky, lucky me, I shall live i n luxury, For I've got a pocketful of dreams. T h e H o l l y w o o d tycoons were not w r o n g i n acting on the as¬ sumption that movies gave the American i m m i g r a n t a means of self-fulfillment w i t h o u t any delay. T h i s strategy, however deplorable i n the light o f the "absolute ideal g o o d , " was perfectly i n accord w i t h f i l m f o r m . I t meant that i n the 1920s the American w a y o f life was exported t o the entire w o r l d i n cans. T h e w o r l d eagerly lined up t o b u y canned dreams. T h e f i l m n o t o n l y accompanied the first great consumer age, b u t was also incentive, a d vertisement and, i n itself, a major c o m m o d i t y . N o w i n terms o l media study i t is clear that the p o w e r of f i l m t o store i n f o r m a t i o n i n accessible f o r m is unrivaled. A u d i o tape and video tape were t o excel film eventually as i n f o r m a t i o n storehouses. B u t film remains a major i n f o r m a t i o n resource, a rival o f the book whose techn o l o g y i t d i d so m u c h t o continue and also t o surpass. A t the present time, film is still i n its manuscript phase, as i t were; shortly i t w i l l , under T V pressure, go i n t o its portable, accessible, p r i n t e d b o o k phase. Soon everyone w i l l be able t o have a small, inexpensive film projector that plays an 8-mm sound cartridge as i f o n a TV

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screen. T h i s t y p e of development is part of our present technological implosion. T h e present dissociation of projector and screen is a vestige of our older mechanical w o r l d of explosion and separation o f functions that is n o w ending w i t h the electrical implosion. T y p o g r a p h i c man t o o k readily t o f i l m just because, like books, i t offers an i n w a r d w o r l d o f fantasy and dreams. T h e f i l m viewer sits i n psychological solitude like the silent book reader. T h i s was n o t the case w i t h the manuscript reader, nor is i t true o f the watcher of television. I t is not pleasant t o t u r n on T V just f o r oneself i n a hotel r o o m , nor even at home. T h e T V mosaic image demands social completion and dialogue. So w i t h the manuscript before t y p o g r a p h y , since manuscript culture is oral and demands dialogue and debate, as the entire culture o f the ancient and medieval w o r l d s demonstrates. One of the major pressures o f T V has been t o encourage the "teaching machine." I n fact, these devices are adaptations of the book i n the direction o f dialogue. These teaching machines are really private tutors, and their being misnamed o n the principle that produced the names "wireless" and "horseless carriage" is another instance i n that l o n g list that illustrates h o w every innovation must pass t h r o u g h a p r i m a r y phase i n w h i c h the n e w effect is secured b y the o l d method, amplified or modified b y some new feature. F i l m is n o t really a single m e d i u m like song or the w r i t t e n w o r d , b u t a collective art f o r m w i t h different individuals directing color, lighting, sound, acting, speaking. T h e press, radio and T V , and the comics are also art forms dependent u p o n entire teams and hierarchies of skill i n corporate action. Prior to the movies, the most obvious example o f such corporate artistic action had occurred early i n the industrialized w o r l d , w i t h the large n e w s y m p h o n y orchestras of the nineteenth century. Paradoxically, as industry w e n t its ever more specialized fragmented course, i t demanded more and more t e a m w o r k i n sales and supplies. T h e symphony orchestra became a major expression o f the ensuing p o w e r o f such coordinated effort, t h o u g h f o r the players themselves this effect was lost, b o t h i n the symphony and i n industry.

Movies/293 W h e n the magazine editors recently introduced film scenario procedures to the constructing of idea articles, the idea article supplanted the short story. T h e film is the rival of the book i n that sense. ( T V i n t u r n is the rival of the magazine because o f its mosaic power.) Ideas presented as a sequence of shots or pictorialized situations, almost i n the manner o f a teaching machine, actually drove the short story out of the magazine field. H o l l y w o o d has f o u g h t T V mainly b y becoming a subsidiary o f T V . Most o f the film industry is n o w engaged i n supplying T V programs. B u t one n e w strategy has been tried, namely the big-budget picture. T h e fact is that Technicolor is the closest the movie can get t o the effect of the T V image. Technicolor greatly lowers photographic intensity and creates, i n part, the visual conditions f o r participant v i e w i n g . H a d H o l l y w o o d understood the reasons f o r Marty's success, T V m i g h t have given us a r e v o l u t i o n i n film. Marty was a T V show that got onto the screen i n the f o r m o f l o w definition or low-intensity visual realism. I t was n o t a success story, and i t had no stars, because the low-intensity T V image is quite incompatible w i t h the high-intensity star image. Marty, w h i c h i n fact looked like an early silent movie or an o l d Russian picture, offered the film i n d u s t r y all the clues i t needed f o r meeting the T V challenge. T h i s k i n d of casual, cool realism has given the new British films easy ascendancy. Room at the Top features the n e w c o o l realism. N o t o n l y is i t n o t a success story, i t is as m u c h an announcement of the end o f the Cinderella package as M a r i l y n M o n r o e was the end o f the star system. Room at the Top is the story o f h o w the higher a m o n k e y climbs, the more y o u see o f his backside. T h e moral is that success is n o t o n l y w i c k e d b u t also the formula f o r misery. I t is v e r y hard f o r a hot m e d i u m like film t o accept the cool message of T V . B u t the Peter Sellers movies Vm All Right, Jack and Only Two Can Play are perfectly i n tune w i t h the n e w temper created b y the cool T V image. Such is also the meaning of the ambiguous success o f Lolita. A s a novel, its acceptance announced the antiheroic approach to romance. T h e film industry had l o n g beaten out a r o y a l road to romance i n keeping w i t h the crescendo o f the success story.

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Lolita announced that the r o y a l road was o n l y a cowtrack, after all, and as f o r success, i t shouldn't happen t o a dog. I n the ancient w o r l d and i n medieval times, the most popular of all stories were those dealing w i t h The Falls of Princes. W i t h the coming of the v e r y hot p r i n t medium, the preference changed t o a rising r h y t h m and to tales o f success and sudden elevation i n the w o r l d . I t seemed possible t o achieve anything b y the new typographic method of minute, u n i f o r m segmentation o f p r o b lems. I t was b y this method, eventually, that film was made. F i l m was, as a f o r m , the final f u l f i l l m e n t of the great potential o f typographic fragmentation. B u t the electric implosion has n o w reversed the entire process of expansion b y fragmentation. Elect r i c i t y has b r o u g h t back the cool, mosaic w o r l d o f implosion, equilibrium, and stasis. I n our electric age, the one-way expansion of the berserk individual o n his w a y t o the t o p n o w appears as a gruesome image o f trampled lives and disrupted harmonies. Such is the subliminal message of the T V mosaic w i t h its total field of simultaneous impulses. F i l m strip and sequence cannot b u t b o w t o this superior power. O u r o w n youngsters have taken the T V message to heart i n their beatnik rejection o f consumer mores and o f the private success story. Since the best w a y t o get t o the core of a f o r m is t o study its effect i n some unfamiliar setting, let us note w h a t President Sukarno of Indonesia announced i n 1956 t o a large group of H o l l y w o o d executives. H e said that he regarded them as political radicals and revolutionaries w h o had greatly hastened political change i n the East. W h a t the O r i e n t saw i n a H o l l y w o o d movie was a w o r l d i n w h i c h all the ordinary people had cars and electric stoves and refrigerators. So the Oriental n o w regards himself as an ordinary person w h o has been deprived o f the o r d i n a r y man's birthright. T h a t is another w a y of getting a v i e w of the film medium as monster ad f o r consumer goods. I n America this major aspect o f film is merely subliminal. Far f r o m regarding our pictures as incentives t o mayhem and revolution, w e take them as solace and compensation, or as a f o r m o f deferred payment b y daydreaming. But the Oriental is r i g h t , and w e are w r o n g about this.

Movies/295 I n fact, the movie is a m i g h t y l i m b o f the industrial giant. T h a t i t is being amputated b y the T V image reflects a still greater r e v o l u t i o n going on at the center of A m e r i c a n life. I t is natural that the ancient East should feel the political p u l l and industrial challenge o f o u r movie industry. T h e movie, as m u c h as the alphabet and the printed w o r d , is an aggressive and imperial f o r m that explodes o u t w a r d i n t o other cultures. Its explosive force was significantly greater i n silent pictures than i n talkies, f o r the electromagnetic sound track already forecast the substitution o f electric implosion f o r mechanical explosion. T h e silent pictures were immediately acceptable across language barriers as the talkies were not. Radio teamed u p w i t h f i l m t o give us the talkie and to carry us f u r t h e r on our present reverse course o f implosion or re-integration after the mechanical age of explosion and expansion. T h e extreme f o r m of this implosion or contract i o n is the image o f the astronaut locked into his wee b i t o f wraparound space. Far f r o m enlarging our w o r l d , he is announci n g its contraction t o village size. T h e rocket and the space capsule are ending the rule o f the wheel and the machine, as m u c h as d i d the w i r e services, radio, and T V . W e may n o w consider a f u r t h e r instance of the film's i n fluence i n a most conclusive aspect. I n m o d e r n literature there is probably no more celebrated technique than that of the stream o f consciousness or interior monologue. W h e t h e r i n Proust, Joyce, or E l i o t , this f o r m o f sequence permits the reader an extraordinary indentification w i t h personalities of the utmost range and diversity. T h e stream o f consciousness is really managed b y the transfer o f f i l m technique t o the p r i n t e d page, where, i n a deep sense i t really originated; f o r as w e have seen, the Gutenberg technology o f movable types is quite indispensable t o any industrial o r film process. A s m u c h as the infinitesimal calculus that pretends t o deal w i t h m o t i o n and change b y minute fragmentation, the film does so b y m a k i n g m o t i o n and change i n t o a series o f static shots. P r i n t does likewise w h i l e pretending t o deal w i t h the w h o l e m i n d i n action. Y e t film and the stream o f consciousness alike seemed to provide a deeply desired release f r o m the mechanical w o r l d o f increasing standardization and u n i f o r m i t y . N o b o d y ever felt

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oppressed b y the m o n o t o n y or u n i f o r m i t y of the Chaplin ballet or b y the monotonous, u n i f o r m musings o f his literary t w i n , Leop o l d Bloom. I n 1911 H e n r i Bergson i n Creative Evolution created a sensat i o n b y associating the t h o u g h t process w i t h the f o r m of the movie. Just at the extreme point o f mechanization represented b y the f a c t o r y , the f i l m , and the press, men seemed b y the stream o f consciousness, or interior f i l m t o obtain release into a w o r l d of spontaneity, o f dreams, and o f unique personal experience. Dickens perhaps began i t all w i t h his M r . Jingle i n Pickwick Papers. Certainly i n David Copperfield he made a great technical discovery, since f o r the first time the w o r l d unfolds realistically t h r o u g h the use o f the eyes of a g r o w i n g child as camera. Here was the stream o f consciousness, perhaps, i n its original f o r m before i t was adopted b y Proust and Joyce and E l i o t . I t indicates h o w the enrichment o f human experience can occur unexpectedly w i t h the crossing and interplay o f the life of media forms. T h e f i l m imports o f all nations, especially those f r o m the U n i t e d States, are v e r y popular i n Thailand, thanks i n part t o a deft T h a i technique f o r getting r o u n d the foreign-language obstacle. I n Bangkok, i n place of subtitles, they use w h a t is called " A d a m - a n d - E v i n g . " T h i s takes the f o r m of live T h a i dialogue read t h r o u g h a loudspeaker b y T h a i actors concealed f r o m the audience. Split-second t i m i n g and great endurance enable these actors to demand more than the best-paid movie stars o f Thailand. Everyone has at some time wished he were equipped w i t h his o w n sound system during a movie performance, i n order to make appropriate comments. I n Thailand, one m i g h t achieve great heights o f interpretive interpolation d u r i n g the inane exchanges of great stars.

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England and America had had their "shots" against radio i n the f o r m of l o n g exposure t o literacy and industrialism. These forms involve an intense visual organization of experience. T h e more earthy and less visual European cultures were n o t immune t o radio. Its tribal magic was not lost on them, and the o l d web o f kinship began t o resonate once more w i t h the note of fascism. T h e inability of literate people t o grasp the language and message o f the media as such is i n v o l u n t a r i l y conveyed b y the comments o f sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld i n discussing the effects of radio: The last group of effects may be called the monopolistic effects of radio. Such have attracted most public attention because of their importance i n the totalitarian countries. I f a government monopolizes the radio, then by mere repetition and by exclusion of conflicting points of view i t can determine the opinions of the population. W e do not know much about how this monopo-

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listic effect really works, but i t is important to note its singularity. N o inference should be drawn regarding the effects of radio as such. I t is often forgotten that H i t l e r did not achieve control through radio but almost despite i t , because at the time of his rise to power radio was controlled by his enemies. The monopolistic effects have probably less social importance than is generally assumed. Professor Lazarsfeld's helpless unawareness o f the nature and effects o f radio is n o t a personal defect, b u t a universally shared ineptitude. I n a radio speech i n M u n i c h , M a r c h 14, 1936, H i t l e r said, " I go m y w a y w i t h the assurance o f a somnambulist." H i s victims and his critics have been equally somnambulistic. T h e y danced entranced t o the t r i b a l d r u m o f radio that extended their central nervous system t o create depth involvement f o r everybody. " I live r i g h t inside radio w h e n I listen. I more easily lose myself i n radio than i n a b o o k , " said a voice f r o m a radio p o l l . T h e power of radio t o involve people i n depth is manifested i n its use d u r i n g h o m e w o r k b y youngsters and b y m a n y other people w h o carry transistor sets i n order to provide a private w o r l d f o r themselves amidst crowds. T h e r e is a little poem b y the German dramatist Berthold Brecht: You little box, held to me when escaping So that your valves should not break, Carried f r o m house to ship f r o m ship to train, So that my enemies might go on talking to me Near m y bed, to m y pain The last thing at night, the first thing i n the morning, O f their victories and of m y cares, Promise me not to go silent all of a sudden. One o f the many effects o f television on radio has been t o shift radio f r o m an entertainment m e d i u m i n t o a k i n d o f nervous i n f o r m a t i o n system. N e w s bulletins, time signals, traffic data, and, above all, weather reports n o w serve t o enhance the native power o f radio t o involve people i n one another. Weather is that medium that involves all people equally. I t is the t o p i t e m o n radio, showering us w i t h fountains o f a u d i t o r y space or lebensraum. I t was no accident that Senator M c C a r t h y lasted such a v e r y

Radio/299 short time w h e n he switched t o T V . Soon the press decided, " H e isn't news any m o r e . " N e i t h e r M c C a r t h y nor the press ever k n e w w h a t had happened. T V is a cool m e d i u m . I t rejects h o t figures and h o t issues and people f r o m the hot press media. Fred A l l e n was a casualty of T V . W a s M a r i l y n Monroe? H a d T V occurred o n a large scale d u r i n g H i t l e r ' s reign he w o u l d have vanished q u i c k l y . H a d T V come first there w o u l d have been no H i t l e r at all. W h e n Khrushchev appeared on A m e r i c a n T V he was m o r e acceptable than N i x o n , as a c l o w n and a lovable sort of o l d b o y . H i s appearance is rendered b y T V as a comic cartoon. Radio, however, is a hot m e d i u m and takes cartoon characters seriously. M r . K . o n radio w o u l d be a different proposition. I n the K e n n e d y - N i x o n debates, those w h o heard them o n radio received an o v e r w h e l m i n g idea of N i x o n ' s superiority. I t was N i x o n ' s fate to provide a sharp, high-definition image and action f o r the cool T V m e d i u m that translated that sharp image i n t o the impression o f a p h o n y . I suppose " p h o n y " is something that resonates w r o n g , that doesn't ring true. I t m i g h t w e l l be that F . D . R . w o u l d n o t have done w e l l o n T V . H e had learned, at least, h o w t o use the hot radio m e d i u m f o r his v e r y cool job of fireside chatting. H e first, however, had had t o h o t u p the press media against himself i n order t o create the r i g h t atmosphere f o r his radio chats. H e learned h o w t o use the press i n close relation t o radio. T V w o u l d have presented h i m w i t h an entirely different political and social m i x o f components and problems. H e w o u l d possibly have enjoyed solving them, f o r he had the k i n d o f p l a y f u l approach necessary f o r t a c k l i n g n e w and obscure relationships. Radio affects most people intimately, person-to-person, off e r i n g a w o r l d o f unspoken communication between w r i t e r speaker and the listener. T h a t is the immediate aspect o f radio. A private experience. T h e subliminal depths o f radio are charged w i t h the resonating echoes o f tribal horns and antique drums. T h i s is inherent i n the v e r y nature o f this m e d i u m , w i t h its p o w e r t o t u r n the psyche and society i n t o a single echo chamber. T h e resonating dimension o f radio is unheeded b y the script w r i t e r s , w i t h f e w exceptions. T h e famous Orson Welles broadcast about the invasion f r o m Mars was a simple demonstration o f the all-inclusive,

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completely i n v o l v i n g scope o f the a u d i t o r y image of radio. I t was H i t l e r w h o gave radio the Orson Welles treatment f o r real. T h a t H i t l e r came i n t o political existence at all is d i r e c t l y o w i n g t o radio and public-address systems. T h i s is n o t t o say that these media relayed his thoughts effectively t o the German people. H i s thoughts were o f v e r y little consequence. Radio provided the first massive experience of electronic implosion, that reversal o f the entire direction and meaning o f literate W e s t e r n civilizat i o n . For tribal peoples, f o r those whose entire social existence is an extension o f f a m i l y life, radio w i l l continue t o be a violent experience. H i g h l y literate societies, that have l o n g subordinated f a m i l y life to individualist stress i n business and politics, have managed to absorb and to neutralize the radio implosion w i t h o u t revolution. N o t so, those communities that have had o n l y brief or superficial experience o f literacy. F o r them, radio is u t t e r l y explosive. T o understand such effects, i t is necessary to see literacy as typographic technology, applied n o t o n l y t o the rationalizing o f the entire procedures o f p r o d u c t i o n and marketing, b u t t o law and education and c i t y planning, as w e l l . T h e principles o f cont i n u i t y , u n i f o r m i t y , and repeatability derived f r o m p r i n t technolo g y have, i n England and America, l o n g permeated every phase o f communal life. I n those areas a c h i l d learns literacy f r o m traffic and street, f r o m every car and t o y and garment. Learning t o read and w r i t e is a m i n o r facet of literacy i n the u n i f o r m , c o n tinuous environments o f the English-speaking w o r l d . Stress o n literacy is a distinguishing mark o f areas that are striving t o initiate that process o f standardization that leads t o the visual organization o f w o r k and space. W i t h o u t psychic transformation o f the inner l i f e i n t o segmented visual terms b y literacy, there cannot be the economic " t a k e - o f f " that insures a continual movement o f augmented p r o d u c t i o n and perpetually accelerated change-and-exchange o f goods and services. Just p r i o r to 1914, the Germans had become obsessed w i t h the menace of "encirclement." T h e i r neighbors had all developed elaborate r a i l w a y systems that facilitated mobilization o f manp o w e r resources. Encirclement is a h i g h l y visual image that had

Radio/301 great novelty f o r this n e w l y industrialized nation. I n the 1930s, b y contrast, the German obsession was w i t h lebensraum. T h i s is not a visual concern, at all. I t is a claustrophobia, engendered b y the radio implosion and compression o f space. T h e German defeat had thrust them back f r o m visual obsession i n t o b r o o d i n g u p o n the resonating A f r i c a w i t h i n . T h e t r i b a l past has never ceased t o be a reality f o r the German psyche. I t was the ready access o f the German and middle-European w o r l d t o the r i c h nonvisual resources of a u d i t o r y and tactile f o r m that enabled them t o enrich the w o r l d o f music and dance and sculpture. A b o v e all their t r i b a l mode gave them easy access t o the new nonvisual w o r l d o f subatomic physics, i n w h i c h long-literate and long-industrialized societies are decidedly handicapped. T h e r i c h area o f preliterate v i t a l i t y felt the h o t impact of radio. T h e message o f radio is one o f violent, unified implosion and resonance. For A f r i c a , India, China, and even Russia, radio is a p r o f o u n d archaic force, a time b o n d w i t h the most ancient past and l o n g f o r g o t t e n experience. T r a d i t i o n , i n a w o r d , is the sense o f the total past as now. Its awakening is a natural result o f radio impact and of electric i n f o r m a t i o n , i n general. F o r the intensely literate population, however, radio engendered a p r o f o u n d unrealizable sense o f g u i l t that sometimes expressed itself i n the fellow-traveler attitude. A n e w l y f o u n d human involvement bred anxiety and insecurity and unpredictability. Since literacy had fostered an extreme of i n dividualism, and radio had done just the opposite i n reviving the ancient experience of kinship webs of deep t r i b a l involvement, the literate W e s t t r i e d to f i n d some sort of compromise i n a larger sense o f collective responsibility. T h e sudden impulse t o this end was just as subliminal and obscure as the earlier l i t e r a r y pressure t o w a r d individual isolation and irresponsibility; therefore, nobody was happy about any o f the positions arrived at. T h e Gutenberg techn o l o g y had produced a new k i n d of visual, national entity i n the sixteenth century that was gradually meshed w i t h industrial p r o d u c t i o n and expansion. Telegraph and radio neutralized nationalism b u t evoked archaic t r i b a l ghosts of the most vigorous brand. T h i s is exactly the meeting of eye and ear, o f explosion and i m p l o -

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sion, or as Joyce puts i t i n the Wake, " I n that earopean end meets I n d . " T h e opening o f the European ear b r o u g h t t o an end the open society and reintroduced the Indie w o r l d of t r i b a l man to W e s t E n d w o m a n . Joyce puts these matters n o t so m u c h i n c r y p t i c , as i n dramatic and mimetic, f o r m . T h e reader has o n l y t o take any o f his phrases such as this one, and mime i t u n t i l i t yields the intelligible. N o t a l o n g or tedious process, i f approached i n the spirit o f artistic playfulness that guarantees "lots o f f u n at Finnegan's w a k e . " Radio is provided w i t h its cloak o f invisibility, like any other medium. I t comes t o us ostensibly w i t h person-to-person directness that is private and intimate, w h i l e i n more urgent fact, i t is really a subliminal echo chamber of magical power t o t o u c h remote and f o r g o t t e n chords. A l l technological extensions o f ourselves must be numb and subliminal, else w e c o u l d n o t endure the leverage exerted u p o n us b y such extension. Even more than telephone or telegraph, radio is that extension o f the central nervous system that is matched o n l y b y human speech itself. Is i t n o t w o r t h y of our meditation that radio should be specially attuned t o that p r i m i t i v e extension o f our central nervous system, that aboriginal mass medium, the vernacular tongue? T h e crossing of these t w o most intimate and potent o f human technologies could n o t possibly have failed t o provide some extraordinary new shapes f o r human experience. So i t proved w i t h H i t l e r , the somnambulist. B u t does the detribalized and literate W e s t imagine that i t has earned i m m u n i t y t o the tribal magic o f radio as a permanent possession? O u r teenagers i n the 1950s began t o manifest many o f the tribal stigmata. T h e adolescent, as opposed t o the teenager, can n o w be classified as a phenomenon o f literacy. Is i t n o t significant that the adolescent was indigenous o n l y t o those areas o f England and America where literacy had invested even f o o d w i t h abstract visual values? Europe never had adolescents. I t had chaperones. N o w , to the teenager, radio gives privacy, and at the same time i t p r o vides the t i g h t tribal b o n d of the w o r l d o f the c o m m o n market, o f song, and of resonance. T h e ear is hyperesthetic compared t o the neutral eye. T h e ear is intolerant, closed, and exclusive, whereas the eye is open, neutral, and associative. Ideas of tolerance came

Radio/303 to the W e s t o n l y after t w o or three centuries o f literacy and visual Gutenberg culture. N o such saturation w i t h visual values had occurred i n Germany b y 1930. Russia is still far f r o m any such involvement w i t h visual order and values. I f w e sit and talk i n a dark r o o m , w o r d s suddenly acquire new meanings and different textures. T h e y become richer, even, than architecture, w h i c h L e Corbusier r i g h t l y says can best be f e l t at n i g h t . A l l those gestural qualities that the printed page strips f r o m language come back i n the dark, and o n the radio. G i v e n o n l y the sound o f a play, w e have t o f i l l i n all o f the senses, n o t just the sight o f the action. So m u c h do-it-yourself, or completion and "closure" o f action, develops a k i n d of independent isolation i n the y o u n g that makes them remote and inaccessible. T h e mystic screen o f sound w i t h w h i c h they are invested b y their radios provides the privacy f o r their h o m e w o r k , and i m m u n i t y f r o m parental behest. W i t h radio came great changes t o the press, t o advertising, t o drama, and t o poetry. Radio offered new scope t o practical jokers like M o r t o n D o w n e y at CBS. A sportscaster had just begun his fifteen-minute reading f r o m a script w h e n he was joined b y M r . D o w n e y , w h o proceeded t o remove his shoes and socks. N e x t f o l l o w e d coat and trousers and then underwear, w h i l e the sportscaster helplessly continued his broadcast, testifying t o the c o m pelling power o f the mike t o command l o y a l t y over modesty and the self-protective impulse. Radio created the disk jockey, and elevated the gag w r i t e r i n t o a major national role. Since the advent o f radio, the gag has supplanted the joke, n o t because o f gag writers, b u t because radio is a fast hot medium that has also rationed the reporter's space f o r stories. Jean Shepherd o f W O R i n N e w Y o r k regards radio as a n e w m e d i u m f o r a new k i n d o f novel that he writes n i g h t l y . T h e m i k e is his pen and paper. H i s audience and their knowledge o f the daily events o f the w o r l d provide his characters, his scenes, and moods. I t is his idea that, just as Montaigne was the first t o use the page t o r e c o r d his reactions t o the new w o r l d o f p r i n t e d books, he is the first to use radio as an essay and novel f o r m f o r recording our

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c o m m o n awareness o f a t o t a l l y new w o r l d of universal human participation i n all human events, private or collective. T o the student o f media, i t is difficult t o explain the human indifference t o social effects o f these radical forces. T h e phonetic alphabet and the p r i n t e d w o r d that exploded the closed tribal w o r l d into the open society o f fragmented functions and specialist knowledge and action have never been studied i n their roles as a magical transformer. T h e antithetic electric power o f instant i n f o r m a t i o n that reverses social explosion i n t o implosion, private enterprise into organization man, and expanding empires i n t o c o m m o n markets, has obtained as little recognition as the w r i t t e n w o r d . T h e p o w e r of radio t o retribalize mankind, its almost instant reversal o f individualism i n t o collectivism, Fascist or Marxist, has gone unnoticed. So extraordinary is this unawareness that it is w h a t needs t o be explained. T h e transforming p o w e r o f media is easy t o explain, b u t the i g n o r i n g o f this p o w e r is n o t at all easy t o explain. I t goes w i t h o u t saying that the universal i g n o r i n g of the psychic action o f technology bespeaks some inherent f u n c t i o n , some essential n u m b i n g o f consciousness such as occurs under stress and shock conditions. T h e history o f radio is instructive as an indicator o f the bias and blindness induced i n any society b y its pre-existent technology. T h e w o r d "wireless," still used f o r radio i n Britain, manifests the negative "horseless-carriage" attitude t o w a r d a n e w f o r m . E a r l y wireless was regarded as a f o r m of telegraph, and was n o t seen even i n relation t o the telephone. D a v i d Sarnoff i n 1916 sent a memo to the D i r e c t o r of the A m e r i c a n M a r c o n i Company that employed h i m , advocating the idea o f a music box i n the home. I t was ignored. T h a t was the year o f the Irish Easter rebellion and o f the first radio broadcast. Wireless had already been used o n ships as ship-to-shore "telegraph." T h e Irish rebels used a ship's wireless t o make, not a p o i n t - t o - p o i n t message, b u t a diffused broadcast i n the hope of getting w o r d t o some ship that w o u l d relay their story t o the American press. A n d so i t proved. Even after broadcasting had been i n existence f o r some years, there was no commercial interest i n i t . I t was the amateur operators or hams and their fans, whose petitions finally g o t some action i n favor of the

Radio/305 setting u p o f facilities. T h e r e was reluctance and opposition f r o m the w o r l d o f the press, w h i c h , i n England, led t o the f o r m a t i o n of the B B C and the firm shackling o f radio b y newspaper and advertising interests. T h i s is an obvious r i v a l r y that has n o t been openly discussed. T h e restrictive pressure b y the press o n radio and T V is still a h o t issue i n Britain and i n Canada. But, t y p i c a l l y , misunderstanding o f the nature o f the m e d i u m rendered the r e straining policies quite futile. Such has always been the case, most notoriously i n government censorship o f the press and o f the movies. A l t h o u g h the m e d i u m is the message, the controls go b e y o n d programming. T h e restraints are always directed t o the " c o n t e n t , " w h i c h is always another m e d i u m . T h e content o f the press is literary statement, as the content o f the book is speech, and the content of the movie is the novel. So the effects o f radio are quite independent o f its p r o g r a m m i n g . T o those w h o have never studied media, this fact is quite as baffling as literacy is t o natives, w h o say, " W h y do y o u write? Can't y o u remember?" T h u s , the commercial interests w h o t h i n k t o render media universally acceptable, invariably settle f o r "entertainment" as a strategy o f neutrality. A more spectacular mode o f the ostrichhead-in-sand could n o t be devised, f o r i t ensures maximal pervasiveness f o r any m e d i u m whatever. T h e literate c o m m u n i t y w i l l always argue f o r a controversial or p o i n t - o f - v i e w use o f press, radio, and movie that w o u l d i n effect diminish the operation, n o t o n l y o f press, radio and movie, b u t of the book as w e l l . T h e commercial entertainment strategy automatically ensures maxim u m speed and force o f impact f o r any m e d i u m , o n psychic and social life equally. I t thus becomes a comic strategy of u n w i t t i n g self-liquidation, conducted b y those w h o are dedicated t o permanence, rather than t o change. I n the f u t u r e , the o n l y effective media controls must take the thermostatic f o r m o f quantitative rationing. Just as w e n o w t r y t o c o n t r o l atom-bomb fallout, so w e w i l l one day t r y t o control media fallout. Education w i l l become recognized as c i v i l defense against media fallout. T h e o n l y medium f o r w h i c h our education n o w offers some c i v i l defense is the p r i n t medium. T h e educational establishment, f o u n d e d o n p r i n t , does not y e t admit any other responsibilities.

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Radio provides a speed-up o f i n f o r m a t i o n that also causes acceleration i n other media. I t certainly contracts the w o r l d t o village size, and creates insatiable village tastes f o r gossip, r u m o r , and personal malice. B u t w h i l e radio contracts the w o r l d t o village dimensions, i t hasn't the effect o f homogenizing the village quarters. Q u i t e the c o n t r a r y . I n India, where radio is the supreme f o r m o f communication, there are more than a dozen official languages and the same number o f official radio networks. T h e effect o f radio as a reviver o f archaism and ancient memories is n o t limited t o H i t l e r ' s Germany. Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have undergone resurgence o f their ancient tongues since the coming o f radio, and the Israeli present an even more extreme instance o f linguistic revival. T h e y n o w speak a language w h i c h has been dead i n books f o r centuries. Radio is n o t o n l y a m i g h t y awakener o f archaic memories, forces, and animosities, b u t a decentralizing, pluralistic force, as is really the case w i t h all electric power and media. Centralism o f organization is based o n the continuous, visual, lineal structuring that arises f r o m phonetic literacy. A t first, therefore, electric media merely f o l l o w e d the established patterns o f literate structures. Radio was released f r o m these centralist netw o r k pressures b y T V . T V then t o o k u p the burden o f centralism, f r o m w h i c h i t may be released b y Telstar. W i t h T V accepting the central n e t w o r k burden derived f r o m our centralized industrial organization, radio was free t o diversify, and t o begin a regional and local c o m m u n i t y service that i t had n o t k n o w n , even i n the earliest days of the radio "hams." Since T V , radio has t u r n e d t o the individual needs o f people at different times of the day, a fact that goes w i t h the m u l t i p l i c i t y of receiving sets i n bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, cars, and n o w i n pockets. D i f f e r e n t programs are provided f o r those engaged i n divers activities. Radio, once a f o r m o f g r o u p listening that emptied churches, has reverted t o private and individual uses since T V . T h e teenager w i t h d r a w s f r o m the T V g r o u p t o his private radio. T h i s natural bias o f radio t o a close tie-in w i t h diversified c o m m u n i t y groups is best manifested i n the disk-jockey cults, and i n radio's use of the telephone i n a glorified f o r m o f the o l d t r u n k line w i r e - t a p p i n g . Plato, w h o had old-fashioned tribal ideas o f

Radio/307 political structure, said that the proper size o f a c i t y was indicated b y the number o f people w h o could hear the voice of a public speaker. Even the p r i n t e d book, let alone radio, renders the political assumptions o f Plato quite irrelevant f o r practical p u r poses. Y e t radio, because o f its ease of decentralized intimate relation w i t h b o t h private and small communities, c o u l d easily implement the Platonic political dream on a w o r l d scale. T h e u n i t i n g o f radio w i t h phonograph that constitutes the average radio program yields a v e r y special pattern quite superior i n p o w e r to the combination of radio and telegraph press that yields our news and weather programs. I t is curious h o w m u c h more arresting are the weather reports than the news, o n b o t h radio and T V . Is n o t this because "weather" is n o w entirely an electronic f o r m of i n f o r m a t i o n , whereas news retains m u c h of the pattern o f the p r i n t e d word? I t is probably the p r i n t and book bias o f the BBC and the CBC that renders them so a w k w a r d and i n hibited i n radio and T V presentation. Commercial urgency, rather than artistic insight, fostered b y contrast a hectic v i v a c i t y i n the corresponding A m e r i c a n operation.

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Perhaps the most familiar and pathetic effect o f the T V image is the posture of children i n the early grades. Since T V , children—regardless of eye c o n d i t i o n average about six and a half inches f r o m the printed page. O u r children are striving t o c a r r y over t o the printed page the alli n v o l v i n g sensory mandate o f the T V image. W i t h perfect psycho-mimetic skill, t h e y c a r r y o u t the commands o f the T V image. T h e y pore, t h e y probe, t h e y slow d o w n and involve themselves i n depth. T h i s is w h a t t h e y had learned t o do i n the cool iconography o f the comic-book med i u m . T V carried the process m u c h f u r ther. Suddenly they are transferred t o the h o t p r i n t m e d i u m w i t h its u n i f o r m patterns and fast lineal movement. Pointlessly they strive t o read p r i n t i n depth. T h e y b r i n g t o p r i n t all their senses, and p r i n t rejects them. P r i n t asks f o r the isolated and strippedd o w n visual f a c u l t y , n o t f o r the unified sensorium.

Television/309 T h e M a c k w o r t h head-camera, w h e n w o r n b y children w a t c h i n g T V , has revealed that their eyes f o l l o w , n o t the actions, b u t the reactions. T h e eyes scarcely deviate f r o m the faces of the actors, even during scenes of violence. T h i s head-camera shows b y projection b o t h the scene and the eye movement simultaneously. Such extraordinary behavior is another indication of the v e r y cool and i n v o l v i n g character o f this m e d i u m . O n the Jack Paar show f o r M a r c h 8, 1963, Richard N i x o n was Paared d o w n and remade i n t o a suitable T V image. I t turns out that M r . N i x o n is b o t h a pianist and a composer. W i t h sure tact f o r the character o f the T V m e d i u m , Jack Paar b r o u g h t out this pianoforte side o f M r . N i x o n , w i t h excellent effect. Instead o f the slick, glib, legal N i x o n , w e saw the doggedly creative and modest performer. A f e w t i m e l y touches like this w o u l d have quite altered the result o f the K e n n e d y - N i x o n campaign. T V is a m e d i u m that rejects the sharp personality and favors the presentation of processes rather than o f products. T h e adaptation o f T V to processes, rather than t o the neatly packaged products, explains the f r u s t r a t i o n many people experience w i t h this m e d i u m i n its political uses. A n article b y E d i t h E f r o n i n TV Guide ( M a y 18-24, 1963) labeled T V " T h e T i m i d G i a n t , " because i t is unsuited to h o t issues and sharply defined controversal topics: "Despite official freedom f r o m censorship, a self-imposed silence renders n e t w o r k documentaries almost mute on many great issues o f the d a y . " A s a cool m e d i u m T V has, some feel, i n t r o d u c e d a k i n d of rigor mortis i n t o the b o d y politic. I t is the extraordinary degree of audience participation i n the T V medium that explains its failure t o tackle h o t issues* H o w a r d K . Smith observed: " T h e networks are delighted i f y o u go i n t o a controversy i n a c o u n t r y 14,000 miles away. T h e y don't w a n t real controversy, real dissent, at home." F o r people c o n ditioned t o the h o t newspaper medium, w h i c h is concerned w i t h the clash o f views, rather than involvement i n depth i n a situation, the T V behavior is inexplicable. Such a hot news i t e m that concerns T V d i r e c t l y was headlined " I t finally happened—a British f i l m w i t h English subtitles t o explain the dialects." T h e f i l m i n question is the British comedy

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"Sparrows D o n ' t Sing." A glossary o f Yorkshire, Cockney, and other slang phrases has been p r i n t e d f o r the customers so that they can figure o u t just w h a t the subtitles mean. Sub subtitles are as handy an indicator o f the depth effects o f T V as the n e w " r u g g e d " styles i n feminine attire. One o f the most extraordinary developments since T V i n England has been the upsurge o f regional dialects. A regional brogue or " b u r r " is the vocal equivalent of gaiter stockings. Such brogues undergo continual erosion f r o m literacy. T h e i r sudden prominence i n England i n areas i n w h i c h previously one had heard o n l y standard English is one o f the most significant c u l t u r a l events o f our time. Even i n the classrooms of O x f o r d and Cambridge, the local dialects are heard again. T h e undergraduates o f those universities no longer strive t o achieve a u n i f o r m speech. Dialectal speech since T V has been f o u n d t o provide a social b o n d i n depth, n o t possible w i t h the artificial "standard E n g l i s h " that began o n l y a c e n t u r y ago. A n article o n P e r r y Como bills h i m as "Low-pressure k i n g of a high-pressure realm." T h e success o f any T V performer depends o n his achieving a low-pressure style of presentation, although getting his act o n the air m a y require m u c h high-pressure organization. Castro may be a case i n p o i n t . A c c o r d i n g t o T a d Szulc's story o n "Cuban Television's One-man S h o w " (The Eighth Art), " i n his seemingly improvised 'as-I-go-along' style he can evolve politics and govern his c o u n t r y — r i g h t o n camera." N o w , T a d Szulc is under the illusion that T V is a h o t medium, and suggests that i n the Congo "television m i g h t have helped L u m u m b a to incite the masses t o even greater t u r m o i l and bloodshed." B u t he is quite w r o n g . Radio is the m e d i u m f o r frenzy, and i t has been the major means o f h o t t i n g u p the t r i b a l b l o o d of A f r i c a , India, and China, alike. T V has cooled Cuba d o w n , as i t is cooling d o w n America. W h a t the Cubans are getting b y T V is the experience o f being d i r e c t l y engaged i n the m a k i n g o f political decisions. Castro presents himself as a teacher, and as Szulc says, "manages t o blend political guidance and education w i t h p r o p aganda so s k i l l f u l l y that i t is o f t e n difficult t o t e l l where one begins and the other ends." Exactly the same m i x is used i n entertainment i n Europe and America alike. Seen outside the U n i t e d

Television/311 States, any American movie looks like subtle political propaganda. Acceptable entertainment has t o flatter and exploit the cultural and political assumptions o f the land o f its origin. These unspoken presuppositions also serve t o b l i n d people t o the most obvious facts about a n e w medium like T V . I n a g r o u p o f simulcasts o f several media done i n T o r o n t o a f e w years back, T V d i d a strange flip. F o u r randomized groups o f university students were given the same i n f o r m a t i o n at the same time about the structure o f preliterate languages. One g r o u p received i t via radio, one f r o m T V , one b y lecture, and one read i t . F o r all b u t the reader g r o u p , the i n f o r m a t i o n was passed along i n straight verbal flow b y the same speaker w i t h o u t discussion or questions or use o f blackboard. Each g r o u p had half an hour o f exposure t o the material. Each was asked t o fill i n the same quiz afterward. I t was quite a surprise t o the experimenters w h e n the students performed better w i t h T V - c h a n n e l e d i n f o r m a t i o n and w i t h radio than they d i d w i t h lecture and print—and the T V g r o u p stood well above the radio group. Since n o t h i n g had been done t o give special stress t o any o f these f o u r media, the experiment was repeated w i t h other randomized groups. T h i s time each m e d i u m was allowed f u l l o p p o r t u n i t y t o do its stuff. F o r radio and T V , the material was dramatized w i t h m a n y a u d i t o r y and visual features. T h e lecturer t o o k f u l l advantage of the blackboard and class discussion. T h e p r i n t e d f o r m was embellished w i t h an imaginative use o f t y p o g r a p h y and page layout t o stress each p o i n t i n the lecture. A l l o f these media had been stepped u p t o h i g h intensity f o r this repeat o f the original performance. Television and radio once again showed results high above lecture and p r i n t . Unexpectedly t o the testers, however, radio n o w stood significantly above television. I t was a l o n g time before the obvious reason declared itself, namely that T V is a cool, participant medium. W h e n hotted u p b y dramatization and stingers, i t performs less w e l l because there is less o p p o r t u n i t y f o r participation. Radio is a hot medium. W h e n given additional intensity, i t performs better. I t doesn't invite the same degree of participation i n its users. Radio w i l l serve as background-sound or as noise-level c o n t r o l , as w h e n the ingenious teenager employs i t as a means o f

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privacy. T V w i l l n o t w o r k as background. I t engages y o u . Y o u have t o be with i t . ( T h e phrase has gained acceptance since T V . ) A great many things w i l l n o t w o r k since the arrival o f T V . N o t o n l y the movies, b u t the national magazines as w e l l , have been h i t v e r y hard b y this new m e d i u m . Even the comic books have declined greatly. Before T V , there had been m u c h concern about w h y J o h n n y couldn't read. Since T V , J o h n n y has acquired an entirely new set of perceptions. H e is n o t at all the same. O t t o Preminger, director o f Anatomy of a Murder and other hits, dates a great change i n movie making and v i e w i n g f r o m the v e r y first year o f general T V programming. " I n 1951," he w r o t e , " I started a fight t o get the release i n m o t i o n - p i c t u r e theaters o f The Moon Is Blue after the p r o d u c t i o n code approval was refused. I t was a small fight and I w o n i t . " (Toronto Daily Star, October 19, 1963) H e w e n t o n t o say, " T h e v e r y fact that i t was the w o r d V i r g i n ' that was objected to i n The Moon Is Blue is today laughable, almost incredible." O t t o Preminger considers that A m e r i c a n movies have advanced t o w a r d m a t u r i t y o w i n g t o the influence of T V . T h e cool T V medium promotes depth structures i n art and entertainment alike, and creates audience involvement i n depth as w e l l . Since nearly all our technologies and entertainment since Gutenberg have been n o t cool, b u t h o t ; and n o t deep, b u t f r a g mentary; n o t producer-oriented, b u t consumer-oriented, there is scarcely a single area o f established relationships, f r o m home and church to school and market, that has n o t been p r o f o u n d l y disturbed i n its pattern and texture. T h e psychic and social disturbance created b y the T V image, and not the T V programming, occasions daily comment i n the press. R a y m o n d Burr, w h o plays P e r r y Mason, spoke t o the National Association o f M u n i c i p a l Judges, r e m i n d i n g t h e m that, " W i t h o u t our laymen's understanding and acceptance, the laws w h i c h y o u apply and the courts i n w h i c h y o u preside cannot continue to exist." W h a t M r . B u r r o m i t t e d to observe was that the Perry Mason T V program, i n w h i c h he plays the lead, is t y p i c a l o f that intensely participational k i n d o f T V experience that has altered our relation t o the laws and the courts. T h e mode o f the T V image has n o t h i n g i n c o m m o n w i t h film

Television/313 or photo, except that i t offers also a nonverbal gestalt or posture o f forms. W i t h T V , the viewer is the screen. H e is bombarded w i t h light impulses that James Joyce called the "Charge of the L i g h t Brigade" that imbues his "soulskin w i t h sobconscious inklings." T h e T V image is visually l o w i n data. T h e T V image is n o t a ttill shot. I t is not photo i n any sense, b u t a ceaselessly f o r m i n g contour of things limned b y the scanning-finger. T h e resulting plastic contour appears b y l i g h t through, n o t light on, and the image so f o r m e d has the q u a l i t y of sculpture and icon, rather than o f picture. T h e T V image offers some three m i l l i o n dots per second t o the receiver. F r o m these he accepts o n l y a f e w dozen each instant, f r o m w h i c h t o make an image. T h e f i l m image offers many more millions of data per second, and the viewer does n o t have t o make the same drastic r e d u c t i o n o f items t o f o r m his impression. H e tends instead to accept the f u l l image as a package deal. I n contrast, the viewer of the T V mosaic, w i t h technical c o n t r o l o f the image, unconsciously reconfigures the dots into an abstract w o r k o f art on the pattern of a Seurat or Rouault. I f anybody were t o ask whether all this w o u l d change i f technology stepped u p the character o f the T V image t o movie data level, one c o u l d o n l y counter b y i n q u i r i n g , " C o u l d w e alter a cartoon b y adding details o f perspective and l i g h t and shade?" T h e answer is "Yes," o n l y i t w o u l d then no longer be a cartoon. N o r w o u l d " i m p r o v e d " T V be television. T h e T V image is novo a mosaic mesh of l i g h t and dark spots w h i c h a movie shot never is, even w h e n the quality o f the movie image is v e r y poor. A s i n any other mosaic, the t h i r d dimension is alien t o T V , b u t i t can be superimposed. I n T V the illusion of the t h i r d dimension is provided slightly b y the stage sets i n the studio; b u t the T V image itself is a flat two-dimensional mosaic. Most o f the threedimensional illusion is a carry-over o f habitual v i e w i n g o f f i l m and photo. For the T V camera does n o t have a b u i l t - i n angle o f vision like the movie camera. Eastman K o d a k n o w has a t w o - d i m e n sional camera that can match the flat effects of the T V camera. Y e t i t is hard f o r literate people, w i t h their habit o f fixed points o f v i e w and three-dimensional vision, t o understand the properties o f two-dimensional vision. I f i t had been easy f o r them, t h e y

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w o u l d have had no difficulties w i t h abstract art, General M o t o r s w o u l d n o t have made a mess o f motorcar design, and the picture magazine w o u l d n o t be having difficulties n o w w i t h the relationship between features and ads. T h e T V image requires each i n stant that w e "close" the spaces i n the mesh b y a convulsive sensuous participation that is p r o f o u n d l y kinetic and tactile, because t a c t i l i t y is the interplay of the senses, rather than the isolated contact of skin and object. T o contrast i t w i t h the film shot, m a n y directors refer to the T V image as one o f " l o w d e f i n i t i o n , " i n the sense that i t offers little detail and a l o w degree of i n f o r m a t i o n , m u c h like the cartoon. A T V close-up provides o n l y as m u c h i n f o r m a t i o n as a small section o f a long-shot o n the movie screen. F o r lack o f observing so central an aspect o f the T V image, the critics of p r o g r a m " c o n t e n t " have talked nonsense about " T V violence." T h e spokesmen o f censorious views are t y p i c a l l y semiliterate book-oriented i n d i viduals w h o have no competence i n the grammars of newspaper, o r radio, or of film, b u t w h o l o o k askew and askance at all n o n book media. T h e simplest question about any psychic aspect, even o f the book medium, t h r o w s these people i n t o a panic o f uncertainty. Vehemence o f p r o j e c t i o n o f a single isolated attitude t h e y mistake f o r m o r a l vigilance. Once these censors became aware that i n all cases "the m e d i u m is the message" or the basic source o f effects, t h e y w o u l d t u r n t o suppression o f media as such, instead o f seeking " c o n t e n t " c o n t r o l . T h e i r current assumption that c o n tent or p r o g r a m m i n g is the factor that influences o u t l o o k and action is derived f r o m the b o o k m e d i u m , w i t h its sharp cleavage between f o r m and content. Is i t n o t strange that T V should have been as revolutionary a m e d i u m i n A m e r i c a i n the 1950s as radio i n Europe i n the 1930s? Radio, the m e d i u m that resuscitated the tribal and kinship webs o f the European m i n d i n the 1920s and 1930s, had no such effect i n England or A m e r i c a . T h e r e , the erosion o f tribal bonds b y means o f literacy and its industrial extensions had gone so far that our radio d i d n o t achieve any notable t r i b a l reactions. Y e t t e n years of T V have Europeanized even the U n i t e d States, as witness its

Television/315 changed feelings f o r space and personal relations. T h e r e is n e w sensitivity t o the dance, plastic arts, and architecture, as w e l l as the demand f o r the small car, the paperback, sculptural hairdos and molded dress effects—to say n o t h i n g o f a new concern f o r complex effects i n cuisine and i n the use o f wines. N o t w i t h s t a n d ing, i t w o u l d be misleading t o say that T V w i l l retribalize England and America. T h e action o f radio on the w o r l d of resonant speech and m e m o r y was hysterical. B u t T V has certainly made England and America vulnerable t o radio where previously they had i m m u n i t y t o a great degree. For good or i l l , the T V image has exerted a u n i f y i n g synesthetic force o n the sense-life o f these intensely literate populations, such as they have lacked f o r centuries. I t is wise t o w i t h h o l d all value judgments w h e n s t u d y i n g these media matters, since their effects are n o t capable o f being isolated. Synesthesia, or unified sense and imaginative life, had l o n g seemed an unattainable dream t o W e s t e r n poets, painters, and artists i n general. T h e y had looked w i t h s o r r o w and dismay on the fragmented and impoverished imaginative life of Western l i t erate man i n the eighteenth century and later. Such was the message o f Blake and Pater, Yeats and D . H . Lawrence, and a host o f other great figures. T h e y were n o t prepared t o have their dreams realized i n everyday life b y the esthetic action o f radio and television. Yet these massive extensions of our central nervous systems have enveloped W e s t e r n man i n a daily session of synesthesia. T h e W e s t e r n w a y of life attained centuries since b y the rigorous separation and specialization o f the senses, w i t h the visual sense atop the hierarchy, is n o t able t o withstand the radio and T V waves that wash about the great visual structure o f abstract I n dividual M a n . Those w h o , f r o m political motives, w o u l d n o w add their force to the anti-individual action o f our electric technology are p u n y subliminal automatons aping the patterns of the prevailing electric pressures. A century ago they w o u l d , w i t h equal somnambulism, have faced i n the opposite direction. German Romantic poets and philosophers had been chanting i n t r i b a l chorus f o r a r e t u r n t o the dark unconscious f o r over a century

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before radio and H i t l e r made such a r e t u r n difficult t o avoid. W h a t is t o be t h o u g h t o f people w h o w i s h such a r e t u r n t o preliterate ways, w h e n t h e y have no i n k l i n g of h o w the civilized visual w a y was ever substituted f o r t r i b a l a u d i t o r y magic? A t this hour, w h e n Americans are discovering n e w passions f o r skin-diving and the wraparound space o f small cars, thanks t o the indomitable tactile promptings o f the T V image, the same image is inspiring m a n y English people w i t h race feelings o f tribal exclusiveness. Whereas h i g h l y literate Westerners have always idealized the c o n d i t i o n of integration of races, i t has been their literate culture that made impossible real u n i f o r m i t y among races. Literate man naturally dreams o f visual solutions t o the problems of human differences. A t the end o f the nineteenth century, this k i n d o f dream suggested similar dress and education f o r b o t h men and w o m e n . T h e failure of the sex-integration programs has p r o vided the theme o f m u c h of the literature and psychoanalysis of the t w e n t i e t h century. Race integration, undertaken o n the basis of visual u n i f o r m i t y , is an extension o f the same cultural strategy of literate man, f o r w h o m differences always seem to need eradicat i o n , b o t h i n sex and i n race, and i n space and i n time. Electronic man, b y becoming ever more deeply involved i n the actualities of the human condition, cannot accept the literate c u l t u r a l strategy. T h e N e g r o w i l l reject a plan o f visual u n i f o r m i t y as definitely as w o m e n d i d earlier, and f o r the same reasons. W o m e n f o u n d that they had been robbed of their distinctive roles and t u r n e d i n t o fragmented citizens i n "a man's w o r l d . " T h e entire approach t o these problems i n terms o f u n i f o r m i t y and social homogenization is a final pressure of the mechanical and industrial technology. W i t h o u t moralizing, i t can be said that the electric age, b y i n v o l v i n g all men deeply i n one another, w i l l come t o reject such mechanical solutions. I t is more difficult to provide uniqueness and diversity than i t is t o impose the u n i f o r m patterns o f mass education; b u t i t is such uniqueness and diversity that can be fostered under electric conditions as never before. T e m p o r a r i l y , all preliterate groups i n the w o r l d have begun to feel the explosive and aggressive energies that are released b y the onset o f the n e w literacy and mechanization. These explosions

Television/317 come just at a time w h e n the new electric technology combines t o make us share them o n a global scale. T h e effect of T V , as the most recent and spectacular electric extension of our central nervous system, is hard to grasp f o r v a r i ous reasons. Since i t has affected the t o t a l i t y o f our lives, personal and social and political, i t w o u l d be quite unrealistic t o attempt a "systematic" or visual presentation o f such influence. Instead, i t is more feasible to "present" T V as a complex gestalt o f data gathered almost at r a n d o m . T h e T V image is of l o w intensity or definition, and, therefore, unlike film, i t does n o t afford detailed i n f o r m a t i o n about objects. T h e difference is akin t o that between the o l d manuscripts and the p r i n t e d w o r d . P r i n t gave intensity and u n i f o r m precision, where before there had been a diffuse texture. P r i n t b r o u g h t i n the taste f o r exact measurement and repeatability that w e n o w associate w i t h science and mathematics. T h e T V producer w i l l point out that speech o n television must n o t have the careful precision necessary i n the theater. T h e T V actor does n o t have t o project either his voice or himself. Likewise, T V acting is so extremely intimate, because o f the peculiar involvement of the viewer w i t h the completion or "closi n g " o f the T V image, that the actor must achieve a great degree o f spontaneous casualness that w o u l d be irrelevant i n movie and lost o n stage. For the audience participates i n the inner life of the T V actor as f u l l y as i n the outer life of the movie star. T e c h n i c a l l y , T V tends t o be a close-up medium. T h e close-up that i n the movie is used f o r shock is, o n T V , a quite casual t h i n g . A n d whereas a glossy photo the size of the T V screen w o u l d show a dozen faces i n adequate detail, a dozen faces on the T V screen are o n l y a b l u r . T h e peculiar character o f the T V image i n its relation to the actor causes such familiar reactions as our n o t being able t o recognize i n real life a person w h o m w e see every week o n T V . N o t m a n y of us are as alert as the kindergartener w h o said t o G a r r y M o o r e , " H o w d i d y o u get off T V ? " Newscasters and actors alike report the frequency w i t h w h i c h t h e y are approached b y people w h o feel they've met them before. Joanne W o o d w a r d i n an i n t e r v i e w was asked w h a t was the difference between being

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a movie star and a T V actress. She replied: " W h e n I was i n the movies I heard people say, 'There goes Joanne W o o d w a r d . ' N o w they say, 'There goes somebody I t h i n k I k n o w . ' " T h e owner o f a H o l l y w o o d hotel i n an area where many movie and T V actors reside reported that tourists had switched their allegiance t o T V stars. Moreover, most T V stars are men, that is, " c o o l characters," w h i l e most movie stars are w o m e n , since they can be presented as " h o t " characters. M e n and w o m e n movie stars alike, along w i t h the entire star system, have tended t o dwindle i n t o a more moderate status since T V . T h e movie is a hot, high-definition medium. Perhaps the most interesting observat i o n of the hotel proprietor was that the tourists w a n t e d t o see Perry Mason and W y a t t Earp. T h e y d i d n o t w a n t t o see R a y m o n d B u r r and H u g h O'Brian. T h e o l d movie-fan tourists had wanted to see their favorites as they were i n real life, n o t as t h e y were i n their film roles. T h e fans of the cool T V m e d i u m w a n t t o see their star i n role, whereas the movie fans w a n t the real thing. A similar reversal o f attitudes occurred w i t h the p r i n t e d book. T h e r e was little interest i n the private lives o f authors under manuscript or scribal culture. T o d a y the comic strip is close t o the prep r i n t w o o d c u t and manuscript f o r m o f expression. W a l t Kelly's Pogo looks v e r y m u c h indeed like a gothic page. Y e t i n spite o f great public interest i n the comic-strip f o r m , there is as little c u r i osity about the private lives o f these artists as about the lives of popular-song w r i t e r s . W i t h p r i n t , the private life became of the utmost concern to readers. P r i n t is a h o t medium. I t projects the author at the public as the movie d i d . T h e manuscript is a cool medium that does n o t project the author, so m u c h as involve the reader. So w i t h T V . T h e viewer is involved and participant. T h e role o f the T V star, i n this w a y , seems more fascinating than his private life. I t is thus that the student o f media, like the psychiatrist, gets more data f r o m his informants than t h e y themselves have perceived. E v e r y b o d y experiences far more than he understands. Yet i t is experience, rather than understanding, that influx ences behavior, especially i n collective matters of media and technology, where the individual is almost inevitably unaware of their effect upon h i m .

Television/'319 Some may find i t paradoxical that a cool medium like T V should be so m u c h more compressed and condensed than a h o t medium like film. B u t i t is w e l l k n o w n that a half minute o f television is equal to three minutes of stage or vaudeville. T h e same is true of manuscript i n contrast to p r i n t . T h e " c o o l " manuscript tended t o w a r d compressed forms o f statement, aphoristic and allegorical. T h e " h o t " p r i n t medium expanded expression i n the direction o f simplification and the "spelling-out" o f meanings. P r i n t speeded up and "exploded" the compressed script i n t o simpler fragments. A cool medium, whether the spoken w o r d or the manuscript or T V , leaves m u c h more f o r the listener or user t o do than a h o t medium. I f the m e d i u m is o f h i g h definition, participation is l o w . I f the medium is o f l o w intensity, the participation is h i g h . Perhaps this is w h y lovers mumble so. Because the l o w definition o f T V insures a h i g h degree o f audience involvement, the most effective programs are those that present situations w h i c h consist o f some process t o be completed. T h u s , t o use T V t o teach poetry w o u l d permit the teacher t o concentrate on the poetic process o f actual making, as i t pertained t o a particular poem. T h e book f o r m is quite unsuited to this t y p e of involved presentation. T h e same salience of p r o c ess of do-it-yourself-ness and depth involvement i n the T V image extends t o the art o f the T V actor. U n d e r T V conditions, he must be alert t o improvise and t o embellish every phrase and verbal resonance w i t h details of gesture and posture, sustaining that intimacy w i t h the viewer w h i c h is n o t possible o n the massive movie screen or o n the stage. T h e r e is the alleged remark of the N i g e r i a n w h o , after seei n g a T V western, said delightedly, " I d i d n o t realize y o u valued human life so little i n the W e s t . " Offsetting this remark is the behavior o f our children i n w a t c h i n g T V westerns. W h e n equipped w i t h the new experimental head-cameras that f o l l o w their eye movements w h i l e w a t c h i n g the image, children keep their eyes on the faces of the T V actors. Even d u r i n g physical violence their eyes remain concentrated o n the facial reactions, rather than o n the eruptive action. Guns, knives, fists, all are ignored i n prefer-

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ence f o r the facial expression. T V is n o t so m u c h an action, as a re-action, medium. T h e y e n o f the T V medium f o r themes of process and c o m plex reactions has enabled the documentary type of f i l m t o come t o the fore. T h e movie can handle process superbly, b u t the movie viewer is more disposed t o be a passive consumer of actions, rather than a participant i n reactions. T h e movie western, like the movie documentary, has always been a l o w l y f o r m . W i t h T V , the western acquired new importance, since its theme is always: "Let's make a t o w n . " T h e audience participates i n the shaping and processing o f a c o m m u n i t y f r o m meager and unpromising components. Moreover, the T V image takes k i n d l y t o the varied and r o u g h textures o f Western saddles, clothes, hides, and shoddy m a t c h - w o o d bars and hotel lobbies. T h e movie camera, b y contrast, is at home i n the slick chrome w o r l d of the n i g h t club and the l u x u r y spots o f a metropolis. Moreover, the contrasting camera preferences o f the movies i n the Twenties and T h i r t i e s , and o f T V i n the Fifties and Sixties spread t o the entire population. I n ten years the new tastes o f America i n clothes, i n f o o d , i n housing, i n entertainment, and i n vehicles express the n e w pattern o f interrelation of forms and do-it-yourself involvement fostered b y the T V image. I t is no accident that such major movie stars as Rita H a y w o r t h , L i z T a y l o r , and M a r i l y n M o n r o e ran i n t o t r o u b l e d waters i n the new T V age. T h e y ran i n t o an age that questioned all the " h o t " media values of the p r e - T V consumer days. T h e T V image challenges the values of fame as m u c h as the values o f consumer goods. "Fame to me," said M a r i l y n M o n r o e , "certainly is o n l y a temporary and a partial happiness. Fame is n o t really f o r a daily diet, that's n o t w h a t fulfills y o u . . . . I t h i n k that w h e n y o u are famous every weakness is exaggerated. T h i s i n d u s t r y should behave t o its stars like a mother whose child has just r u n out i n f r o n t o f a car. B u t instead o f clasping the child t o t h e m t h e y start punishing the c h i l d . " T h e movie c o m m u n i t y is n o w getting clobbered b y T V , and lashes out at a n y b o d y i n its bewildered petulance. These words of the great movie puppet w h o w e d M r . Baseball and M r . Broad-

Television/321 w a y are surely a portent. I f many of the r i c h and successful figures in America were to question p u b l i c l y the absolute value o f money and success as means t o happiness and human welfare, they w o u l d offer no more shattering a precedent than M a r i l y n M o n r o e . F o r nearly fifty years, H o l l y w o o d had offered "the fallen w o m a n " a w a y to the t o p and a w a y t o the hearts o f all. Suddenly the love-goddess emits a horrible c r y , screams that eating people is w r o n g , and utters denunciations of the w h o l e w a y o f life. T h i s is exactly the m o o d o f the suburban beatniks. T h e y reject a f r a g mented and specialist consumer life f o r a n y t h i n g that offers humble involvement and deep commitment. I t is the same m o o d that recently turned girls f r o m specialist careers to early marriage and b i g families. T h e y s w i t c h f r o m jobs t o roles. T h e same new preference f o r depth participation has also p r o m p t e d i n the y o u n g a strong drive t o w a r d religious experience w i t h r i c h liturgical overtones. T h e liturgical revival of the radio and T V age affects even the most austere Protestant sects. Choral chant and r i c h vestments have appeared i n every quarter. T h e ecumenical movement is synonymous w i t h electric technology. Just as T V , the mosaic mesh, does n o t foster perspective i n art, i t does n o t foster lineality i n living. Since T V , the assembly line has disappeared f r o m industry. Staff and line structures have dissolved i n management. Gone are the stag line, the p a r t y line, the receiving line, and the pencil line f r o m the backs of nylons. W i t h T V came the end o f bloc v o t i n g i n politics, a f o r m o f specialism and fragmentation that w o n ' t w o r k since T V . Instead o f the v o t i n g bloc, w e have the icon, the inclusive image. Instead o f a political v i e w p o i n t or p l a t f o r m , the inclusive political posture or stance. Instead o f the p r o d u c t , the process. I n periods o f new and rapid g r o w t h there is a b l u r r i n g of outlines. I n the T V image w e have the supremacy o f the blurred outline, itself the maximal incentive to g r o w t h and new "closure" or completion, especially f o r a consumer culture l o n g related to the sharp visual values that had become separated f r o m the other senses. So great is the change i n A m e r i c a n lives, resulting f r o m the loss o f l o y a l t y to the c o n sumer package i n entertainment and commerce, that every enterprise, f r o m Madison Avenue and General M o t o r s t o H o l l y w o o d

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and General Foods, has been shaken t h o r o u g h l y and forced t o seek n e w strategies o f action. W h a t electric implosion or contraction has done inter-personally and inter-nationally, the T V image does intra-personally or intra-sensuously. I t is n o t hard t o explain this sensuous r e v o l u t i o n t o painters and sculptors, f o r t h e y have been striving, ever since Cézanne abandoned perspective illusion i n favor of structure i n painting, t o b r i n g about the v e r y change that T V has n o w effected o n a fantastic scale. T V is the Bauhaus p r o g r a m of design and l i v i n g , or the Montessori educational strategy, given total technological extension and commercial sponsorship. T h e aggressive lunge o f artistic strategy f o r the remaking o f W e s t e r n man has, via T V , become a vulgar sprawl and an o v e r w h e l m i n g splurge i n A m e r i c a n life. I t w o u l d be impossible t o exaggerate the degree t o w h i c h this image has disposed America t o European modes o f sense and sensibility. A m e r i c a is n o w Europeanizing as f u r i o u s l y as Europe is Americanizing. Europe, d u r i n g the Second W a r , developed m u c h of the industrial technology needed f o r its first mass consumer phase. I t was, on the other hand, the First W a r that had readied America f o r the same consumer "take-off." I t t o o k the electronic implosion t o dissolve the nationalist diversity o f a splintered Europe, and t o do f o r i t w h a t the industrial explosion had done f o r America. T h e industrial explosion that accompanies the fragmenting expansion of literacy and i n d u s t r y was able t o exert little u n i f y i n g effect i n the European w o r l d w i t h its numerous tongues and cultures. T h e Napoleonic thrust had utilized the combined force o f the new literacy and early industrialism. B u t Napoleon had had a less homogenized set of materials t o w o r k w i t h than even the Russians have today. T h e homogenizing p o w e r of the literate process had gone f u r t h e r i n America b y 1800 than anywhere i n Europe. F r o m the first, America t o o k t o heart the p r i n t technology f o r its educational, industrial, and political l i f e ; and i t was rewarded b y an unprecedented p o o l o f standardized workers and consumers, such as no culture had ever had before. T h a t our c u l t u r a l historians have been oblivious o f the homogenizing p o w e r o f t y p o g r a p h y , and o f the irresistible strength o f

Television/323 homogenized populations, is no credit t o them. Political scientists have been quite unaware o f the effects o f media anywhere at any time, simply because n o b o d y has been w i l l i n g t o study the personal and social effects o f media apart f r o m their "content." America l o n g ago achieved its C o m m o n M a r k e t b y mechanical and literate homogenization o f social organization. Europe is n o w getting a u n i t y under the electric auspices of compression and i n terrelation. Just h o w m u c h homogenization via literacy is needed to make an effective producer-consumer g r o u p i n the postmechanical age, i n the age o f automation, n o b o d y has ever asked. F o r i t has never been f u l l y recognized that the role of literacy i n shaping an industrial economy is basic and archetypal. L i t e r a c y is indispensable f o r habits o f u n i f o r m i t y at all times and places. A b o v e all, i t is needed f o r the w o r k a b i l i t y o f price systems and markets. T h i s factor has been ignored exactly as T V is n o w being ignored, f o r T V fosters m a n y preferences that are quite at v a r i ance w i t h literate u n i f o r m i t y and repeatability. I t has sent A m e r icans questing f o r every sort o f oddment and quaintness i n objects f r o m o u t o f their storied past. M a n y Americans w i l l n o w spare no pains or expense t o get t o taste some n e w w i n e or f o o d . T h e u n i f o r m and repeatable n o w must y i e l d t o the uniquely askew, a fact that is increasingly the despair and confusion of our entire standardized economy. T h e power o f the T V mosaic t o transform A m e r i c a n i n n o cence i n t o depth sophistication, independently of "content," is n o t mysterious i f looked at d i r e c t l y . T h i s mosaic T V image had already been adumbrated i n the popular press that g r e w u p w i t h the telegraph. T h e commercial use o f the telegraph began i n 1844 i n America, and earlier i n England. T h e electric principle and its implications received m u c h attention i n Shelley's p o e t r y . A r t i s t i c r u l e - o f - t h u m b usually anticipates the science and technology i n these matters b y a f u l l generation or more. T h e meaning of the telegraph mosaic i n its journalistic manifestations was not lost t o the m i n d o f Edgar A l l a n Poe. H e used i t t o establish t w o startl i n g l y new inventions, the symbolist poem and the detective story. B o t h o f these forms require do-it-yourself participation on the part o f the reader. B y o f f e r i n g an incomplete image or process, Poe

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involved his readers i n the creative process i n a w a y that Baudelaire, Valéry, T . S. E l i o t , and m a n y others have admired and f o l l o w e d . Poe had grasped at once the electric dynamic as one o f public participation i n creativity. Nevertheless, even today the homogenized consumer complains w h e n asked t o participate i n creating or completing an abstract poem or painting or structure o f any k i n d . Y e t Poe k n e w even then that participation i n depth f o l l o w e d at once f r o m the telegraph mosaic. T h e more lineal and literal-minded o f the literary brahmins "just couldn't see i t . " T h e y still can't see i t . T h e y prefer n o t t o participate i n the creative process. T h e y have accommodated themselves t o the completed packages, i n prose and verse and i n the plastic arts. I t is these people w h o must c o n f r o n t , i n every classroom i n the land, students w h o have accommodated themselves t o the tactile and nonpictorial modes o f symbolist and m y t h i c structures, thanks t o the T V image. Life magazine f o r A u g u s t 10, 1962, had a feature o n h o w " T o o M a n y Subteens G r o w U p T o o Soon and T o o Fast." T h e r e was no observation of the fact that similar speed o f g r o w t h and precociousness have always been the n o r m i n tribal cultures and i n nonliterate societies. England and A m e r i c a fostered the institut i o n of prolonged adolescence b y the negation of the tactile participation that is sex. I n this, there was no conscious strategy, b u t rather a general acceptance of the consequences o f p r i m e stress o n the printed w o r d and visual values as a means o f organizing personal and social life. T h i s stress led t o triumphs o f industrial p r o d u c t i o n and political c o n f o r m i t y that were their o w n sufficient warrant. Respectability, or the ability t o sustain visual inspection o f one's life, became dominant. N o European c o u n t r y allowed p r i n t such precedence. Visually, Europe has always been shoddy i n A m e r i c a n eyes. A m e r i c a n w o m e n , o n the other hand, w h o have never been equaled i n any culture f o r visual t u r n o u t , have always seemed abstract, mechanical dolls to Europeans. T a c t i l i t y is a supreme value i n European life. For that reason, o n the Continent there is no adolescence, b u t o n l y the leap f r o m c h i l d h o o d to adult ways. Such is n o w the A m e r i c a n state since T V , and this state o f evasion o f

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adolescence w i l l continue. T h e introspective life o f long, l o n g thoughts and distant goals, t o be pursued i n lines of Siberian r a i l road k i n d , cannot coexist w i t h the mosaic f o r m o f the T V image that commands immediate participation i n depth and admits o f no delays. T h e mandates o f that image are so various y e t so consistent that even t o mention them is to describe the r e v o l u t i o n o f the past decade. T h e phenomenon o f the paperback, the b o o k i n " c o o l " version, can head this list o f T V mandates, because the T V transf o r m a t i o n o f book culture i n t o something else is manifested at that point. Europeans have had paperbacks f r o m the first. F r o m the beginnings o f the automobile, they have preferred the w r a p a r o u n d space of the small car. T h e pictorial value o f "enclosed space" f o r book, car, or house has never appealed t o them. T h e paperback, especially i n its h i g h b r o w f o r m , was t r i e d i n America i n the 1920s and thirties and forties. I t was not, however, u n t i l 1953 that i t suddenly became acceptable. N o publisher really knows w h y . N o t o n l y is the paperback a tactile, rather than a visual, package; i t can be as readily concerned w i t h p r o f o u n d matters as w i t h f r o t h . T h e American since T V has lost his inhibitions and his innocence about depth culture. T h e paperback reader has discovered that he can enjoy Aristotle or Confucius b y simply slowing d o w n . T h e o l d literate habit o f racing ahead o n u n i f o r m lines o f p r i n t yielded suddenly t o depth reading. Reading i n depth is, o f course, not proper t o the printed w o r d as such. D e p t h p r o b i n g o f w o r d s and language is a normal feature o f oral and manuscript cultures, rather than o f p r i n t . Europeans have always felt that the English and Americans lacked depth i n their culture. Since radio, and especially since T V , English and A m e r i c a n l i t e r a r y critics have exceeded the performance o f any European i n depth and subtlety. T h e beatnik reaching o u t f o r Zen is o n l y c a r r y i n g the mandate o f the T V mosaic o u t i n t o the w o r l d of w o r d s and perception. T h e paperback itself has become a vast mosaic w o r l d i n depth, expressive of the changed sense-life of Americans, f o r w h o m depth experience i n w o r d s , as i n physics, has become entirely acceptable, and even sought after. Just where t o begin t o examine the transformation o f A m e r -

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ican attitudes since T V is a most a r b i t r a r y affair, as can be seen i n a change so great as the abrupt decline of baseball. T h e removal of the B r o o k l y n Dodgers t o Los Angeles was a portent i n itself. Baseball moved W e s t i n an attempt t o retain an audience after T V struck. T h e characteristic mode o f the baseball game is that i t features one-thing-at-a-time. I t is a lineal, expansive game w h i c h , like golf, is perfectly adapted t o the outlook of an individualist and inner-directed society. T i m i n g and w a i t i n g are o f the essence, w i t h the entire field i n suspense w a i t i n g u p o n the performance of a single player. B y contrast, football, basketball, and ice hockey are games i n w h i c h many events occur simultaneously, w i t h the entire team involved at the same time. W i t h the advent o f T V , such isolation o f the individual performance as occurs i n baseball became unacceptable. Interest i n baseball declined, and its stars, quite as m u c h as movie stars, f o u n d that fame had some v e r y cramping dimensions. Baseball had been, like the movies, a h o t medium featuring individual v i r t u o s i t y and stellar performers. T h e real ball fan is a store of statistical i n f o r m a t i o n about previous explosions o f batters and pitchers i n numerous games. N o t h i n g could indicate more clearly the peculiar satisfaction p r o v i d e d b y a game that belonged t o the industrial metropolis o f ceaselessly exploding populations, stocks and bonds, and p r o d u c t i o n and sales records. Baseball belonged to the age o f the first onset o f the h o t press and the movie medium. I t w i l l always remain a s y m b o l of the era o f the h o t mommas, jazz babies, o f sheiks and shebas, o f vamps and gold-diggers and the fast buck. Baseball, i n a w o r d , is a h o t game that got cooled off i n the n e w T V climate, as d i d most of the h o t politicians and hot issues o f the earlier decades. T h e r e is no cooler medium or hotter issue at present than the small car. I t is like a badly w i r e d w o o f e r i n a h i - f i c i r c u i t that produces a tremendous flutter i n the b o t t o m . T h e small European car, like the European paperback and the European belle, f o r that matter, was no visual package job. V i s u a l l y , the entire batch o f European cars are so poor an affair that i t is obvious their makers never thought of them as something t o l o o k at. T h e y are somet h i n g t o p u t on, like pants or a pullover. Theirs is the k i n d o f space sought b y the skin-diver, the water-skier, and the d i n g h y

Television/'327 sailor. I n an immediate tactile sense, this n e w space is akin t o that t o w h i c h the p i c t u r e - w i n d o w fad had catered. I n terms of " v i e w , " the picture w i n d o w never made any sense. I n terms of an attempt to discover a n e w dimension i n the out-of-doors b y pretending t o be a goldfish, the picture w i n d o w does make sense. So do the frantic efforts t o roughen up the i n d o o r walls and textures as i f they were the outside of the house. Exactly the same impulse sends the indoor spaces and f u r n i t u r e out i n t o the patios i n an attempt t o experience the outside as inside. T h e T V viewer is i n just that role at all times. H e is submarine. H e is bombarded b y atoms that reveal the outside as inside i n an endless adventure amidst b l u r r e d images and mysterious contours. H o w e v e r , the A m e r i c a n car had been fashioned i n accordance w i t h the visual mandates of the typographic and the movie images. T h e A m e r i c a n car was an enclosed space, n o t a tactile space. A n d an enclosed space, as was shown i n the chapter on P r i n t , is one i n w h i c h all spatial qualities have been reduced t o visual terms. So i n the American car, as the French observed decades ago, "one is n o t o n the road, one is i n the car." B y contrast, the European car aims t o drag y o u along the road and t o provide a great deal o f v i b r a t i o n f o r the b o t t o m . Brigitte Bardot got into the news w h e n i t was discovered that she liked t o drive barefoot i n order to get the maximal v i b r a t i o n . Even English cars, weak o n visual appearance as they are, have been g u i l t y o f advertising that "at sixty miles an hour all y o u can hear is the t i c k i n g of the clock." T h a t w o u l d be a v e r y p o o r ad, indeed, f o r a T V generation that has t o be with everything and has t o dig things i n order t o get at them. So avid is the T V viewer f o r r i c h tactile effects that he c o u l d be counted o n t o revert t o skis. T h e wheel, so far as he is concerned, lacks the requisite abrasiveness. Clothes i n this first T V decade repeat the same story as vehicles. T h e r e v o l u t i o n was heralded b y bobby-soxers w h o dumped the w h o l e cargo o f visual effects f o r a set o f tactile ones so extreme as t o create a dead level of flat-footed dead-panism. Part o f the cool dimension o f T V is the cool, deadpan m u g that came i n w i t h the teenager. Adolescence, i n the age o f h o t media, o f radio and movie, and of the ancient book, had been a time o f fresh, eager,

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and expressive countenances. N o elder statesman or senior executive of the 1940s w o u l d have ventured t o wear so dead and sculptural a pan as the c h i l d o f the T V age. T h e dances that came i n w i t h T V were t o match—all the w a y t o the T w i s t , w h i c h is merely a f o r m o f v e r y unanimated dialogue, the gestures and grimaces o f w h i c h indicate involvement i n depth, b u t " n o t h i n g t o say." C l o t h i n g and s t y l i n g i n the past decade have gone so tactile and sculptural that they present a sort o f exaggerated evidence o f the new qualities o f the T V mosaic. T h e T V extension o f our nerves i n hirsute pattern possesses the p o w e r t o evoke a f l o o d o f related imagery i n clothing, hairdo, w a l k , and gesture. A l l this adds u p t o the compressional implosion—the r e t u r n t o nonspecialized forms of clothes and spaces, the seeking of multi-uses f o r rooms and things and objects, i n a single word—the iconic. I n music and poetry and painting, the tactile implosion means the insistence on qualities that are close t o casual speech. T h u s Schonberg and Stravinsky and Carl O r f f and Bartok, far f r o m being advanced seekers o f esoteric effects, seem n o w t o have b r o u g h t music v e r y close t o the c o n d i t i o n o f o r d i n a r y human speech. I t is this colloquial r h y t h m that once seemed so unmelodious about their w o r k . A n y o n e w h o listens t o the medieval w o r k s o f Perotinus or D u f a y w i l l f i n d t h e m v e r y close t o Stravinsky and Bartok. T h e great explosion o f the Renaissance that split musical instruments off f r o m song and speech and gave t h e m specialist functions is n o w being played b a c k w a r d i n our age o f electronic implosion. One o f the most v i v i d examples o f the tactile quality of the T V image occurs i n medical experience. I n closed-circuit instruct i o n i n surgery, medical students f r o m the first reported a strange effect—that they seemed not t o be w a t c h i n g an operation, b u t p e r f o r m i n g i t . T h e y felt that they were h o l d i n g the scalpel. T h u s the T V image, i n fostering a passion f o r depth involvement i n every aspect of experience, creates an obsession w i t h b o d i l y w e l fare. T h e sudden emergence of the T V medico and the hospital w a r d as a program t o rival the western is perfectly natural. I t w o u l d be possible to list a dozen u n t r i e d kinds of programs that

Television/329 w o u l d prove immediately popular f o r the same reasons. T o m D o o l e y and his epic o f Medicare f o r the backward society was a natural o u t g r o w t h o f the first T V decade. N o w that w e have considered the subliminal force o f the T V image i n a redundant scattering of samples, the question w o u l d seem t o arise: " W h a t possible immunhy can there be f r o m the subliminal operation o f a n e w medium like television?" People have l o n g supposed that b u l l d o g opacity, backed b y firm disapproval, is adequate enough protection against any n e w experience. I t is the theme o f this b o o k that not even the most l u c i d understanding o f the peculiar force o f a medium can head off the o r d i nary "closure" o f the senses that causes us t o c o n f o r m t o the pattern o f experience presented. T h e utmost p u r i t y o f m i n d is no defense against bacteria, t h o u g h the confreres of Louis Pasteur tossed h i m out of the medical profession f o r his base allegations about the invisible operation o f bacteria. T o resist T V , therefore, one must acquire the antidote of related media like p r i n t . I t is an especially t o u c h y area that presents itself w i t h the question: " W h a t has been the effect of T V o n our political l i f e ? " Here, at least, great traditions o f critical awareness and vigilance testify t o the safeguards w e have posted against the dastardly uses of power. W h e n Theodore W h i t e ' s The Making of the President: 1960 is opened at the section o n " T h e Television Debates," the T V student w i l l experience dismay. W h i t e offers statistics on the n u m ber o f sets i n A m e r i c a n homes and the number of hours o f daily use o f these sets, b u t n o t one clue as t o the nature of the T V image or its effects o n candidates or viewers. W h i t e considers the " c o n t e n t " of the debates and the deportment of the debaters, b u t i t never occurs t o h i m t o ask w h y T V w o u l d inevitably be a disaster f o r a sharp intense image like N i x o n ' s , and a boon f o r the b l u r r y , shaggy texture o f Kennedy. A t the end o f the debates, Philip Deane o f the L o n d o n Observer explained m y idea o f the coming T V impact o n the elect i o n t o the Toronto Globe and Mail under the headline o f " T h e Sheriff and the L a w y e r , " October 15, 1960. I t was that T V w o u l d prove so entirely i n Kennedy's favor that he w o u l d w i n the elec-

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tdon. W i t h o u t T V , N i x o n had i t made. Deane, t o w a r d the end of his article, w r o t e : N o w the press has tended to say that M r . N i x o n has been gaining i n the last t w o debates and that he was bad i n the first. Professor McLuhan thinks that M r . N i x o n has been sounding progressively more definite; regardless of the value of the Vice-President's views and principles, he has been defending them w i t h too much flourish for the T V medium. M r . Kennedy's rather sharp responses have been a mistake, but he still presents an image closer to the T V hero, Professor McLuhan says—something like the shy young Sheriff—while M r . N i x o n w i t h his very dark eyes that tend to stare, w i t h his slicker circumlocution, has resembled more the railway lawyer who signs leases that are not i n the interests of the folks i n the little town. I n fact, by counterattacking and by claiming f o r himself, as he does i n the T V debates, the same goals as the Democrats have, M r . N i x o n may be helping his opponent by blurring the Kennedy image, by confusing what exactly i t is that M r . Kennedy wants to change. M r . Kennedy is thus not handicapped by clear-cut issues; he is visually a less well-defined image, and appears more nonchalant. H e seems less anxious to sell himself than does M r . Nixon. So far, then, Professor McLuhan gives M r . Kennedy the lead without underestimating M r . Nixon's formidable appeal to the vast conservative forces of the United States. A n o t h e r w a y o f explaining the acceptable, as opposed to the unacceptable, T V personality is t o say that anybody whose appearance strongly declares his role and status i n life is w r o n g f o r T V . A n y b o d y w h o looks as i f he m i g h t be a teacher, a doctor, a businessman, or any o f a dozen other things all at the same time is r i g h t f o r T V . W h e n the person presented looks classifiable, as N i x o n d i d , the T V viewer has n o t h i n g t o fill i n . H e feels u n c o m fortable w i t h his T V image. H e says uneasily, "There's something about the g u y that isn't r i g h t . " T h e viewer feels exactly the same about an exceedingly p r e t t y g i r l o n T V , or about any o f the i n tense " h i g h d e f i n i t i o n " images and messages f r o m the sponsors. I t is n o t accidental that advertising has become a vast n e w source o f comic effects since the advent o f T V . M r . Khrushchev is a v e r y filled-in or completed image that appears o n T V as a comic car-

Television/'331 t o o n . I n w i r e p h o t o and o n T V , M r . Khrushchev is a jovial comic, an entirely disarming presence. Likewise, precisely the f o r m u l a that recommends a n y b o d y f o r a movie role disqualifies that same person f o r T V acceptance. For the hot movie m e d i u m needs people w h o l o o k v e r y definitely a type o f some k i n d . T h e cool T V m e d i u m cannot abide the t y p i c a l because i t leaves the viewer frustrated o f his job o f 'closure" or completion o f image. President Kennedy d i d n o t l o o k like a r i c h man or like a politician. H e could have been a n y t h i n g f r o m a grocer or a professor to a f o o t b a l l coach. H e was not too precise o r too ready o f speech i n such a w a y as t o spoil his pleasantly t w e e d y b l u r o f countenance and outline. H e w e n t f r o m palace t o l o g cabin, f r o m wealth t o the W h i t e House, i n a pattern o f T V reversal and upset. T h e same components w i l l be f o u n d i n any popular T V figure. E d Sullivan, "the great stone face," as he was k n o w n f r o m the first, has the m u c h needed harshness o f texture and general sculptural quality demanded f o r serious regard o n T V . Jack Paar is quite otherwise—neither shaggy nor sculptural. B u t on the other hand, his presence is entirely acceptable o n T V because o f his u t t e r l y cool and casual verbal agility. T h e Jack Paar show revealed the inherent need o f T V f o r spontaneous chat and dialogue. Jack discovered h o w t o extend the T V mosaic image i n t o the entire f o r m a t o f his show, seemingly snaffling u p just a n y b o d y f r o m anywhere at the drop o f a hat. I n fact, however, he understood v e r y w e l l h o w t o create a mosaic f r o m other media, f r o m the w o r l d o f journalism and politics, books, Broadway, and the arts i n general, u n t i l he became a formidable rival to the press mosaic itself. A s A m o s and A n d y had l o w e r e d church attendance o n Sunday evenings i n the o l d days o f radio, so Jack Parr certainly c u t n i g h t club patronage w i t h his late show. H o w about Educational Television? W h e n the three-year-old sits w a t c h i n g the President's press conference w i t h D a d and Grandad, that illustrates the serious educational role o f T V . I f w e ask w h a t is the relation o f T V t o the learning process, the answer is surely that the T V image, b y its stress o n participation, dialogue, and depth, has b r o u g h t t o A m e r i c a n e w demand f o r crash-programming i n education. W h e t h e r there ever w i l l be T V

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i n every classroom is a small matter. T h e r e v o l u t i o n has already taken place at home. T V has changed our sense-lives and our mental processes. I t has created a taste f o r all experience in depth that affects language teaching as m u c h as car styles. Since T V , n o b o d y is happy w i t h a mere b o o k knowledge o f French or English poetry. T h e unanimous c r y n o w is, "Let's talk F r e n c h , " and " L e t the bard be heard" A n d o d d l y enough, w i t h the demand f o r depth, goes the demand f o r crash-programming. N o t o n l y deeper, b u t f u r t h e r , into all knowledge has become the normal popular demand since T V . Perhaps enough has been said about the nature of the T V image t o explain w h y this should be. H o w could i t possibly pervade our lives any m o r e than i t does? M e r e classr o o m use could n o t extend its influence. O f course, i n the classr o o m its role compels a reshuffling o f subjects, and approaches t o subjects. M e r e l y t o p u t the present classroom o n T V w o u l d be like p u t t i n g movies o n T V . T h e result w o u l d be a h y b r i d that is neither. T h e r i g h t approach is t o ask, " W h a t can T V do that the classroom cannot do f o r French, or f o r physics?" T h e answer is: " T V can illustrate the interplay o f process and the g r o w t h o f forms o f all kinds as n o t h i n g else can." T h e other side o f the story concerns the fact that, i n the visually organized educational and social w o r l d , the T V c h i l d is an underprivileged cripple. A n oblique indication o f this startling reversal has been given b y W i l l i a m Golding's Lord of the Flies. O n the one hand, i t is v e r y flattering f o r hordes o f docile children to be t o l d that, once out of the sight o f their governesses, the seethi n g savage passions w i t h i n them w o u l d b o i l over and sweep away pram and playpen, alike. O n the other hand, M r . Golding's l i t t l e pastoral parable does have some meaning i n terms o f the psychic changes i n the T V child. T h i s matter is so i m p o r t a n t f o r any f u t u r e strategy o f culture or politics that i t demands a headline prominence, and capsulated summary: W H Y

T H E TV CHILD

CANNOT

SEE

AHEAD

T h e plunge i n t o depth experience via the T V image can o n l y be explained i n terms of the differences between visual and mosaic space. A b i l i t y t o discriminate between these radically different

Television/333 forms is quite rare i n our Western w o r l d . I t has been pointed out that, i n the c o u n t r y o f the b l i n d , the one-eyed man is n o t k i n g . H e is taken t o be an hallucinated lunatic. I n a h i g h l y visual culture, i t is as difficult t o communicate the nonvisual properties o f spatial forms as t o explain visuality t o the b l i n d . I n the A B C of Relativity Bertrand Russell began b y explaining that there is n o t h i n g difficult about Einstein's ideas, b u t that they do call f o r total reorganization o f our imaginative lives. I t is precisely this imaginative reorganizat i o n that has occurred via the T V image. T h e ordinary i n a b i l i t y t o discriminate between the p h o t o graphic and the T V image is n o t merely a c r i p p l i n g factor i n the learning process t o d a y ; i t is symptomatic o f an age-old failure i n W e s t e r n culture. T h e literate man, accustomed t o an environment i n w h i c h the visual sense is extended everywhere as a principle o f organization, sometimes supposes that the mosaic w o r l d o f p r i m i tive art, or even the w o r l d o f Byzantine art, represents a mere d i f ference i n degree, a sort o f failure to b r i n g their visual portrayals u p t o the level o f f u l l visual effectiveness. N o t h i n g could be f u r t h e r f r o m the t r u t h . This, i n fact, is a misconception that has impaired understanding between East and W e s t f o r many centuries. T o d a y i t impairs relations between colored and w h i t e societies. M o s t technology produces an amplification that is quite exp l i c i t i n its separation o f the senses. Radio is an extension o f the aural, h i g h - f i d e l i t y photography of the visual. But T V is, above all, an extension o f the sense o f touch, w h i c h involves maximal interplay of all the senses. F o r Western man, however, the a l l embracing extension had occurred b y means o f phonetic w r i t i n g , w h i c h is a technology f o r extending the sense of sight. A l l n o n phonetic forms o f w r i t i n g are, b y contrast, artistic modes that retain m u c h variety o f sensuous orchestration. Phonetic w r i t i n g , alone, has the power o f separating and fragmenting the senses and o f sloughing off the semantic complexities. T h e T V image reverses this literate process o f analytic fragmentation of sensory life. T h e visual stress o n c o n t i n u i t y , u n i f o r m i t y , and connectedness, as i t derives f r o m literacy, confronts us w i t h the great technological means o f implementing c o n t i n u i t y and lineality b y fragmented repetition. T h e ancient w o r l d f o u n d this means i n the

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b r i c k , whether f o r w a l l or road. T h e repetitive, u n i f o r m b r i c k , indispensable agent o f road and w a l l , o f cities and empires, is an extension, via letters, o f the visual sense. The brick wall is not a mosaic form, and neither is the mosaic f o r m a visual structure. T h e mosaic can be seen as dancing can, b u t is n o t structured visually; nor is i t an extension o f the visual power. F o r the mosaic is n o t u n i f o r m , continuous, or repetitive. I t is discontinuous, skew, and nonlineal, like the tactual T V image. T o the sense o f t o u c h , all things are sudden, counter, original, spare, strange. T h e "Pied Beauty" o f G . M . H o p k i n s is a catalogue of the notes o f the sense o f touch. T h e poem is a manifesto o f the nonvisual, and like Cézanne or Seurat, or Rouault i t provides an indispensable approach t o understanding T V . T h e nonvisual mosaic structures o f modern art, like those o f modern physics and electric-information patterns, permit little detachment. T h e mosaic f o r m o f the T V image demands participation and involvement i n depth of the whole being, as does the sense o f t o u c h . Literacy, i n contrast, had, b y extending the visual power t o the u n i f o r m organization of time and space, psychically and socially, conferred the p o w e r o f detachment and noninvolvement. T h e visual sense w h e n extended b y phonetic literacy fosters the analytic habit o f perceiving the single facet i n the l i f e o f forms. T h e visual p o w e r enables us t o isolate the single incident i n time and space, as i n representational art. I n visual representation of a person or an object, a single phase or moment or aspect is separated f r o m the m u l t i t u d e of k n o w n and felt phases, moments and aspects o f the person or object. B y contrast, iconographie art uses the eye as w e use our hand i n seeking t o create an inclusive image, made u p o f many moments, phases, and aspects of the person or t h i n g . T h u s the iconic mode is n o t visual representation, nor the specialization of visual stress as defined b y v i e w i n g f r o m a single position. T h e tactual mode o f perceiving is sudden b u t n o t specialist. I t is total, synesthetic, i n v o l v i n g all the senses. Pervaded b y the mosaic T V image, the T V c h i l d encounters the w o r l d i n a spirit antithetic t o literacy. T h e T V image, that is t o say, even more than the i c o n , is an extension o f the sense of touch. W h e r e i t encounters a literate

Television/33

5

culture, i t necessarily thickens the sense-mix, transforming f r a g mented and specialist extensions i n t o a seamless w e b of experience. Such transformation is, o f course, a "disaster" f o r a literate, specialist culture. I t blurs m a n y cherished attitudes and procedures. I t dims the efficacy o f the basic pedagogic techniques, and the relevance o f the c u r r i c u l u m . I f f o r no other reason, i t w o u l d be w e l l t o understand the dynamic life of these forms as they i n t r u d e u p o n us and u p o n one another. T V makes f o r myopia. T h e y o u n g people w h o have experienced a decade o f T V have naturally imbibed an urge t o w a r d involvement i n depth that makes all the remote visualized goals o f usual culture seem n o t o n l y unreal b u t irrelevant, and n o t o n l y irrelevant b u t anemic. I t is the total involvement i n all-inclusive nowness that occurs i n y o u n g lives via T V ' s mosaic image. T h i s change of attitude has n o t h i n g t o do w i t h p r o g r a m m i n g i n any w a y , and w o u l d be the same i f the programs consisted entirely of the highest cultural content. T h e change i n attitude b y means o f relating themselves t o the mosaic T V image w o u l d occur i n any event. I t is, of course, our job n o t o n l y to understand this change b u t t o exploit i t f o r its pedagogical richness. T h e T V child expects involvement and doesn't w a n t a specialist job i n the f u t u r e . H e does w a n t a role and a deep commitment t o his society. U n b r i d l e d and misunderstood, this r i c h l y human need can manifest itself i n the distorted forms portrayed i n West Side Story. T h e T V child cannot see ahead because he wants involvement, and he cannot accept a fragmentary and merely visualized goal o r destiny i n learning or i n life. MURDER

BY

TELEVISION

Jack R u b y shot Lee Oswald w h i l e t i g h t l y surrounded b y guards w h o were paralyzed b y television cameras. T h e fascinating and i n v o l v i n g power o f television scarcely needed this additional p r o o f o f its peculiar operation u p o n human perceptions. T h e Kennedy assassination gave people an immediate sense of the television power t o create depth involvement, o n the one hand, and a n u m b i n g effect as deep as grief, itself, o n the other hand. Most people were amazed at the depth o f meaning w h i c h the

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event communicated to them. M a n y more were surprised b y the coolness and calm o f the mass reaction. T h e same event, handled b y press or radio ( i n the absence o f television), w o u l d have p r o vided a t o t a l l y different experience. T h e national " l i d " w o u l d have " b l o w n o f f . " Excitement w o u l d have been enormously greater and depth participation i n a common awareness v e r y m u c h less. As explained earlier, Kennedy was an excellent T V image. H e had used the m e d i u m w i t h the same effectiveness that Roosevelt had learned t o achieve b y radio. W i t h T V , Kennedy f o u n d i t natural t o involve the nation i n the office o f the Presidency, b o t h as an operation and as an image. T V reaches out f o r the corporate attributes o f office. Potentially, i t can transform the Presidency i n t o a monarchic dynasty. A merely elective Presidency scarcely affords the depth o f dedication and commitment demanded b y the T V f o r m . Even teachers on T V seem t o be endowed b y the student audiences w i t h a charismatic or mystic character that m u c h exceeds the feelings developed i n the classroom or lecture hall. I n the course o f m a n y studies of audience reactions to T V teaching, there recurs this puzzling fact. T h e viewers feel that the teacher has a dimension almost o f sacredness. T h i s feeling does n o t have its basis i n concepts or ideas, b u t seems to creep i n uninvited and unexplained. I t baffles b o t h the students and the analysts o f their reactions. Surely, there c o u l d be no more telling t o u c h t o t i p us off t o the character o f T V . T h i s is not so m u c h a visual as a tactual-auditory m e d i u m that involves all of our senses i n depth interplay. For people l o n g accustomed t o the merely visual experience o f the typographic and photographic varieties, i t w o u l d seem t o be the synesthesia, or tactual depth of T V experience, that dislocates t h e m f r o m their usual attitudes of passivity and detachment. T h e banal and ritual remark o f the conventionally literate, that T V presents an experience f o r passive viewers, is w i d e of the mark. T V is above all a m e d i u m that demands a creatively participant response. T h e guards w h o failed t o protect Lee Oswald were not passive. T h e y were so involved b y the mere sight o f the T V cameras that they lost their sense of their merely practical and specialist task.

Television/'337 Perhaps i t was the K e n n e d y funeral that most strongly i m pressed the audience w i t h the power o f T V t o invest an occasion w i t h the character o f corporate participation. N o national event except i n sports has ever had such coverage or such an audience. I t revealed the unrivaled p o w e r o f T V t o achieve the involvement o f the audience i n a complex process. T h e funeral as a corporate process caused even the image o f sport t o pale and dwindle i n t o p u n y proportions. T h e K e n n e d y funeral, i n short, manifested the p o w e r o f T V t o involve an entire population i n a ritual process. B y comparison, press, movie and even radio are mere packaging devices f o r consumers. M o s t o f all, the K e n n e d y event provides an o p p o r t u n i t y f o r n o t i n g a paradoxical feature o f the " c o o l " T V medium. I t involves us i n m o v i n g depth, b u t i t does n o t excite, agitate or arouse. Presumably, this is a feature of all depth experience.

32 m

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W h e n the Russian g i r l Valentina Tereshkova, quite w i t h o u t p i l o t training, w e n t

^ j 3 h i as reacted t o i n the press and other media, kind of defacing of the images of the male astronauts, especially the A m e r i cans. Shunning the expertise o f American astronauts, all o f w h o m were qualified test pilots, the Russians don't seem t o feel that space travel is related enough t o the airplane t o require a pilot's " w i n g s . " Since our culture forbids the sending o f a w o m a n i n t o o r b i t , our o n l y repartee w o u l d have been to launch i n t o o r b i t a group o f space children, t o indicate that i t is, after all, child's play. T h e first sputnik or l i t t l e f e l l o w traveler" was a w i t t y taunting o f the capitalist w o r l d b y means of a new k i n d of technological image or icon, f o r w h i c h a g r o u p of children i n o r b i t m i g h t y e t be a telling retort. Plainly, the first lady astronaut is offered t o the W e s t as a little m t o

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Weapons/339 Valentine—or heart throb—suited t o our sentimentality. I n fact, the w a r o f the icons, or the eroding o f the collective countenance o f one's rivals, has l o n g been under w a y . I n k and photo are supplanting soldiery and tanks. T h e pen daily becomes mightier than the s w o r d . T h e French phrase "guerre des nerfs" o f t w e n t y - f i v e years ago has since come t o be referred t o as "the c o l d w a r . " I t is really an electric battle o f i n f o r m a t i o n and of images that goes far deeper and is more obsessional than the o l d hot wars of industrial hardware. T h e " h o t " wars o f the past used weapons that knocked off the enemy, one b y one. Even ideological warfare i n the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries proceeded b y persuading individuals t o adopt new points o f v i e w , one at a time. Electric persuasion b y photo and movie and T V w o r k s , instead, b y d u n k i n g entire populations i n new imagery. F u l l awareness o f this technological change had dawned o n Madison Avenue ten years ago w h e n i t shifted its tactics f r o m the p r o m o t i o n of the individual p r o d u c t t o the collective involvement i n the "corporate image," n o w altered t o "corporate posture." Parallel to the n e w c o l d w a r of i n f o r m a t i o n exchange is the situation commented o n b y James Reston i n a Neiv York Times release f r o m W a s h i n g t o n : Politics has gone international. The British Labor Leader is here campaigning for Prime Minister of Britain, and fairly soon John F. Kennedy w i l l be over i n Italy and Germany campaigning for reelection. Everybody's now whistle-stopping through somebody else's country, usually ours. Washington has still not adjusted to this third-man role. I t keeps forgetting that anything said here may be used by one side or another i n some election campaign, and that i t may, by accident, be the decisive element i n the final vote. I f the cold w a r i n 1964 is being f o u g h t b y informational techn o l o g y , that is because all wars have been f o u g h t b y the latest technology available i n any culture. I n one o f his sermons J o h n Donne commented t h a n k f u l l y o n the blessing o f heavy firearms:

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So by the benefit of this light of reason they have found out Artillery, by which warres come to quicker ends than heretofore . . . T h e scientific knowledge needed f o r the use of g u n p o w d e r and the b o r i n g o f cannon appeared t o Donne as " t h e l i g h t o f reason." H e failed t o notice another advance i n the same techn o l o g y that hastened and extended the scope of human slaughter. I t is referred t o b y John U . N e f i n War and Human Progress: The gradual abandonment of armor as a part of the equipment of soldiers during the seventeenth century freed some metal supplies for the manufacture of firearms and missiles. I t is easy t o discover i n this a seamless w e b o f i n t e r w o v e n events w h e n w e t u r n t o l o o k at the psychic and social consequences o f the technological extensions o f man. Back i n the 1920s K i n g Amanullah seems t o have p u t his finger on this w e b w h e n he said, after f i r i n g off a torpedo: " I feel half an Englishman already." T h e same sense o f the relentlessly i n t e r w o v e n texture of human fate was touched b y the schoolboy w h o said: " D a d , I hate w a r . " " W h y , son?" "Because w a r makes history, and I hate h i s t o r y . " T h e techniques developed over the centuries f o r d r i l l i n g g u n barrels provided the means that made possible the steam engine. T h e piston shaft and the g u n presented the same problems i n b o r i n g hard steel. Earlier, i t had been the lineal stress o f perspective that had channeled perception i n paths that led t o the creation o f gunfire. L o n g before guns, g u n p o w d e r had been used explosively, dynamite style. T h e use o f g u n p o w d e r f o r the propelling o f missiles i n trajectories waited f o r the c o m i n g of perspective i n the arts. T h i s liaison o f events between technology and the arts m a y explain a matter that has l o n g puzzled anthropologists. T h e y have repeatedly tried t o explain the fact that nonliterates are generally poor shots w i t h rifles, o n the grounds that, w i t h the b o w and a r r o w , p r o x i m i t y t o game was more i m p o r t a n t than distant ac-

Weapons/341 curacy, w h i c h was almost impossible to achieve—hence, say some anthropologists, their i m i t a t i o n of hunted beasts b y dressing i n skins t o get close to the herd. I t is also pointed out that bows are silent, and w h e n an a r r o w missed, animals rarely fled. I f the a r r o w is an extension o f the hand and the arm, the rifle is an extension o f the eye and teeth. I t m a y be to the p o i n t t o remark that i t was the literate American colonists w h o were first t o insist o n a rifled barrel and improved gunsights. T h e y i m p r o v e d the o l d muskets, creating the K e n t u c k y rifle. I t was the h i g h l y literate Bostonians w h o outshot the British regulars. Marksmanship is n o t the g i f t o f the native or the woodsman, b u t of the literate colonist. So runs this argument that links gunfire itself w i t h the rise o f perspective, and w i t h the extension o f the visual p o w e r i n literacy. I n the Marine Corps i t has been f o u n d that there is a definite correlation between education and marksmanship. N o t f o r the nonliterate is our easy selection o f a separate, isolated target i n space, w i t h the rifle as an extension o f the eye. I f gunpowder was k n o w n l o n g before i t was used f o r guns, the same is also true o f the use of the lodestone or magnet. Its use i n the compass f o r lineal navigation had, also, t o w a i t f o r the discovery o f lineal perspective i n the arts. Navigators t o o k a l o n g time t o accept the possibility o f space as u n i f o r m , connected, and c o n tinuous. T o d a y i n physics, as i n painting and sculpture, progress consists i n giving u p the idea o f space as either u n i f o r m , c o n tinuous, or connected. V i s u a l i t y has lost its p r i m a c y . I n the Second W o r l d W a r the marksman was replaced b y automatic weapons fired b l i n d l y i n w h a t were called "perimeters o f fire" or " f i r e lanes." T h e old-timers f o u g h t to retain the b o l t action Springfield w h i c h encouraged single-shot accuracy and sighting. Spraying the air w i t h lead i n a k i n d o f tactual embrace was f o u n d t o be good b y night, as w e l l as b y day, and sighting was unnecessary. A t this stage o f technology, the literate man is somew h a t i n the position o f the old-timers w h o backed the Springfield rifle against perimeter fire. I t is this same visual habit that deters and obstructs literate man i n m o d e r n physics, as M i l i c Capek explains i n The Philosophical Impact of Modern Physics. M e n i n the older oral societies of middle Europe are better able

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t o conceive the nonvisual velocities and relations of the subatomic world. O u r h i g h l y literate societies are at a loss as t h e y encounter the n e w structures o f opinion and feeling that result f r o m instant and global i n f o r m a t i o n . T h e y are still i n the g r i p o f "points of v i e w " and of habits o f dealing w i t h things one at a time. Such habits are quite c r i p p l i n g i n any electric structure of i n f o r m a t i o n movement, y e t t h e y could be controlled i f w e recognized whence they had been acquired. B u t literate society thinks o f its artificial visual bias as a t h i n g natural and innate. L i t e r a c y remains even n o w the base and model o f all programs o f industrial mechanization; b u t , at the same time, i t locks the minds and senses o f its users i n the mechanical and fragmentary matrix that is so necessary t o the maintenance o f mechanized society. T h a t is w h y the transition f r o m mechanical t o electric technology is so v e r y traumatic and severe f o r us all. T h e mechanical techniques, w i t h their l i m i t e d powers, w e have l o n g used as weapons. T h e electric techniques cannot be used aggressively except to end all life at once, like the t u r n i n g off o f a l i g h t . T o live w i t h b o t h o f these technologies at the same time is the peculiar drama o f the t w e n t i e t h century. I n his Education Automation, R. Buckminster Fuller considers that weaponry has been a source o f technological advance f o r mankind because i t requires continually i m p r o v e d performance w i t h ever smaller means. " A s w e w e n t f r o m the ships o f the sea to the ships of the air, the performance per p o u n d o f the equipment and fuel became o f even higher importance than o n the sea." I t is this t r e n d t o w a r d more and m o r e power w i t h less and less hardware that is characteristic o f the electric age of i n f o r m a t i o n . Fuller has estimated that i n the first half c e n t u r y of the airplane the nations of the w o r l d have invested t w o and a half t r i l l i o n dollars b y subsidy o f the airplane as a weapon. H e added that this amounts t o s i x t y - t w o times the value o f all the g o l d i n the w o r l d . H i s approach t o these problems is more technological than the approach of historians, w h o have o f t e n tended t o find that w a r produces n o t h i n g n e w i n the w a y o f invention. " T h i s man w i l l teach us h o w t o beat h i m , " Peter the Great

Weapons/343 is said t o have remarked after his a r m y had been beaten b y Charles X I I of Sweden. T o d a y , the b a c k w a r d countries can learn f r o m us h o w t o beat us. I n the new electric age of i n f o r m a t i o n , the backward countries enjoy some specific advantages over the h i g h l y literate and industrialized cultures. F o r b a c k w a r d countries have the habit and understanding of oral propaganda and persuasion that was eroded i n industrial societies l o n g ago. T h e Russians had o n l y t o adapt their traditions of Eastern i c o n and imageb u i l d i n g t o the n e w electric media i n order t o be aggressively effective i n the m o d e r n w o r l d o f i n f o r m a t i o n . T h e idea o f the Image, that Madison Avenue has had to learn the hard w a y , was the o n l y idea available t o Russian propaganda. T h e Russians have n o t shown imagination o r resourcefulness i n their propaganda. T h e y have merely done that w h i c h their religious and cultural traditions taught t h e m ; namely, t o b u i l d images. T h e c i t y , itself, is traditionally a m i l i t a r y weapon, and is a collective shield or plate armor, an extension o f the castle of our v e r y skins. Before the huddle o f the c i t y , there was the f o o d gathering phase o f man the hunter, even as men have n o w i n the electric age returned psychically and socially t o the nomad state. N o w , however, i t is called information-gathering and data-processing. B u t i t is global, and i t ignores and replaces the f o r m o f the c i t y w h i c h has, therefore, tended t o become obsolete. W i t h instant electric technology, the globe itself can never again be more than a village, and the v e r y nature of c i t y as a f o r m o f major dimensions must inevitably dissolve like a fading shot i n a movie. T h e first circumnavigation of the globe i n the Renaissance gave men a sense o f embracing and possessing the earth that was quite new, even as the recent astronauts have again altered man's relation t o the planet, reducing its scope t o the extent o f an evening's stroll. T h e c i t y , like a ship, is a collective extension o f the castle o f our skins, even as c l o t h i n g is an extension o f our individual skins. B u t weapons proper are extensions o f hands, nails, and teeth, and come i n t o existence as tools needed f o r accelerating the processing o f matter. T o d a y , w h e n w e live i n a t i m e o f sudden transition f r o m mechanical to electric technology, i t is easier t o see the character o f all previous technologies, w e being detached f r o m all

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o f them f o r the time being. Since our new electric technology is n o t an extension o f our bodies b u t of our central nervous systems, w e n o w see all technology, including language, as a means of processing experience, a means o f storing and speeding i n f o r m a t i o n . A n d i n such a situation all technology can plausibly be regarded as weapons. Previous wars can n o w be regarded as the processing o f difficult and resistant materials b y the latest technology, the speedy dumping o f industrial products o n an enemy market to the p o i n t of social saturation. W a r , i n fact, can be seen as a process o f achieving equilibrium among unequal technologies, a fact that explains Toynbee's puzzled observation that each invent i o n o f a new weapon is a disaster f o r society, and that militarism itself is the most c o m m o n cause o f the breaking o f civilizations. B y militarism, Rome extended civilization or individualism, literacy, and lineality t o many oral and b a c k w a r d tribes. Even t o day the mere existence o f a literate and industrial W e s t appears quite naturally as dire aggression t o nonliterate societies; just as the mere existence o f the atom b o m b appears as a state o f universal aggression t o industrial and mechanized societies. O n the one hand, a new weapon or technology looms as a threat t o all w h o lack i t . O n the other hand, w h e n e v e r y b o d y has the same technological aids, there begins the competitive f u r y of the homogenized and the egalitarian pattern against w h i c h the strategy o f social class and caste has o f t e n been used i n the past. F o r caste and class are techniques o f social s l o w - d o w n that tend t o create the stasis o f tribal societies. T o d a y w e appear t o be poised between t w o ages—one of detribalization and one o f retribalization. Between the acting of a dreadful thing, A n d the first motion, all the interim is Like a Phantasma, or a hideous Dream: The genius and the mortal instruments Are then in council; and the state of man, Like to a little Kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection. (Julius Caesar, Brutus I I , i ) I f mechanical technology as extension of parts o f the human b o d y had exerted a fragmenting force, psychically and socially,

Weapons/345 this fact appears nowhere more v i v i d l y than i n mechanical weapo n r y . W i t h the extension o f the central nervous system b y electric technology, even w e a p o n r y makes more v i v i d the fact of the u n i t y o f the human f a m i l y . T h e v e r y inclusiveness o f i n f o r m a t i o n as a weapon becomes a daily reminder that politics and history must be recast i n the f o r m o f "the concretization o f human f r a t e r n i t y . " T h i s dilemma o f w e a p o n r y appears v e r y clearly t o Leslie D e w a r t i n his Christianity and Revolution, w h e n he points t o the obsolescence o f the fragmented balance-of-power techniques. A s an instrument o f p o l i c y , m o d e r n w a r has come t o mean " t h e existence and end o f one society t o the exclusion o f another." A t this p o i n t , weaponry is a self-liquidating fact.

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A newspaper headline recently read, " L i t tle Red Schoolhouse Dies W h e n G o o d Road B u i l t . " O n e - r o o m schools, w i t h all subjects being taught t o all grades at the same time, simply dissolve w h e n better transportation permits specialized spaces and specialized teaching. A t the extreme o f speeded-up movement, however, specialism o f space and subject disappears once more. W i t h automation, i t is n o t o n l y jobs that disappear, and complex roles t h a t . reappear. Centuries o f specialist stress i n pedagogy and i n the arrangement o f data n o w end w i t h the instantaneous retrieval o f i n f o r m a t i o n made possible b y electrici t y . A u t o m a t i o n is i n f o r m a t i o n and i t n o t o n l y ends jobs i n the w o r l d o f w o r k , i t ends subjects i n the w o r l d of learning. I t does n o t end the w o r l d of learning. T h e f u t u r e o f w o r k consists of earning a l i v i n g i n the automation age. T h i s is a familiar pattern i n electric technology i n general. I t ends the o l d dichotomies between c u l -

Automation/'347 ture and technology, between art and commerce, and between w o r k and leisure. Whereas i n the mechanical age o f fragmentation leisure had been the absence o f w o r k , or mere idleness, the reverse is t r u e i n the electric age. A s the age of i n f o r m a t i o n demands the simultaneous use o f all our faculties, w e discover that w e are most at leisure w h e n w e are most intensely involved, v e r y m u c h as w i t h the artists i n all ages. I n terms of the industrial age, i t can be pointed out that the difference between the previous mechanical age and the n e w electric age appears i n the different kinds of inventories. Since electricity, inventories are made u p n o t so m u c h of goods i n storage as o f materials i n continuous process o f transformation at spatially removed sites. F o r electricity n o t o n l y gives p r i m a c y t o process, whether i n m a k i n g or i n learning, b u t i t makes independent the source of energy f r o m the location o f the process. I n entertainment media, w e speak of this fact as "mass media" because the source o f the p r o g r a m and the process of experiencing i t are independent i n space, y e t simultaneous i n time. I n i n d u s t r y this basic fact causes the scientific r e v o l u t i o n that is called "autom a t i o n " or " c y b e r n a t i o n . " I n education the conventional division o f the c u r r i c u l u m i n t o subjects is already as outdated as the medieval t r i v i u m and quadr i v i u m after the Renaissance. A n y subject taken i n depth at once relates t o other subjects. A r i t h m e t i c i n grade three or nine, w h e n taught i n terms o f number t h e o r y , symbolic logic, and cultural history, ceases to be mere practice i n problems. Continued i n their present patterns of fragmented unrelation, our school curricula w i l l insure a citizenry unable t o understand the cybernated w o r l d i n w h i c h they live. M o s t scientists are quite aware that since w e have acquired some knowledge of electricity i t is not possible t o speak o f atoms as pieces o f matter. A g a i n , as more is k n o w n about electrical "discharges" and energy, there is less and less tendency t o speak o f electricity as a t h i n g that " f l o w s " like water t h r o u g h a w i r e , or is "contained" i n a battery. Rather, the tendency is t o speak o f electricity as painters speak of space; namely, that i t is a variable condition that involves the special positions o f t w o or more bodies.

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T h e r e is no longer any tendency t o speak o f electricity as " c o n tained" i n anything. Painters have l o n g k n o w n that objects are n o t contained i n space, b u t that t h e y generate their o w n spaces. I t was the dawning awareness o f this i n the mathematical w o r l d a c e n t u r y ago that enabled Lewis Carroll, the O x f o r d mathematician, t o contrive Alice in Wonderland, i n w h i c h times and spaces are neither u n i f o r m n o r continuous, as t h e y had seemed t o be since the arrival o f Renaissance perspective. As f o r the speed o f light, that is merely the speed of total causality. I t is a principal aspect of the electric age that i t establishes a global n e t w o r k that has m u c h o f the character o f our central nervous system. O u r central nervous system is n o t merely an electric n e t w o r k , b u t i t constitutes a single unified field of experience. As biologists point out, the brain is the interacting place where all kinds o f impressions and experiences can be exchanged and translated, enabling us t o react to the world as a whole. N a t u r a l l y , w h e n electric technology comes into play, the utmost variety and extent o f operations i n i n d u s t r y and society q u i c k l y assume a unified posture. Y e t this organic u n i t y o f interprocess that electromagnetism inspires i n the most diverse and specialized areas and organs o f action is quite the opposite o f organization i n a mechanized society. Mechanization o f any process is achieved b y fragmentation, beginning w i t h the mechanization o f w r i t i n g b y movable types, w h i c h has been called the "monofracture of manufacture." T h e electric telegraph, w h e n crossed w i t h t y p o g r a p h y , created the strange new f o r m o f the m o d e r n newspaper. A n y page of the telegraph press is a surrealistic mosaic of bits o f "human interest" i n v i v i d interaction. Such was the art f o r m of Chaplin and the early silent movies. H e r e , too, an extreme speedu p o f mechanization, an assembly line of still shots o n celluloid, led t o a strange reversal. T h e movie mechanism, aided b y the elect r i c light, created the illusion o f organic f o r m and movement as m u c h as a fixed position had created the illusion o f perspective on a flat surface five hundred years before. T h e same t h i n g happens less superficially w h e n the electric principle crosses the mechanical lines of industrial organization.

Automation/'349 A u t o m a t i o n retains o n l y as m u c h of the mechanical character as the motorcar kept o f the forms o f the horse and the carriage. Y e t people discuss automation as i f w e had n o t passed the oat barrier, and as i f the horse-vote at the next p o l l w o u l d sweep away the automation regime. A u t o m a t i o n is n o t an extension o f the mechanical principles o f fragmentation and separation of operations. I t is rather the invasion o f the mechanical w o r l d b y the instantaneous character o f electricity. T h a t is w h y those involved i n automation insist that i t is a w a y o f t h i n k i n g , as m u c h as i t is a w a y of doing. Instant synchronization o f numerous operations has ended the o l d mechanical pattern o f setting u p operations i n lineal sequence. T h e assembly line has gone the w a y of the stag line. N o r is i t just the lineal and sequential aspect o f mechanical analysis that has been erased b y the electric speed-up and exact synchronizing of i n f o r m a t i o n that is automation. A u t o m a t i o n or cybernation deals w i t h all the units and c o m ponents o f the industrial and marketing process exactly as radio or T V combine the individuals i n the audience i n t o n e w interprocess. T h e n e w k i n d of interrelation i n b o t h industry and entertainment is the result of the electric instant speed. O u r n e w electric techn o l o g y n o w extends the instant processing o f knowledge b y interrelation that has l o n g occurred w i t h i n our central nervous system. I t is that same speed that constitutes "organic u n i t y " and ends the mechanical age that had gone i n t o high gear w i t h Gutenberg. A u t o m a t i o n brings i n real "mass p r o d u c t i o n , " n o t i n terms of size, b u t o f an instant inclusive embrace. Such is also the character o f "mass media." T h e y are an indication, n o t o f the size o f their audiences, b u t of the fact that everybody becomes involved i n them at the same time. T h u s c o m m o d i t y industries under automation share the same structural character o f the entertainment industries i n the degree that b o t h approximate the condition of instant i n f o r m a t i o n . A u t o m a t i o n affects n o t just p r o d u c t i o n , b u t every phase of consumption and marketing; f o r the consumer becomes producer i n the automation circuit, quite as m u c h as the reader of the mosaic telegraph press makes his o w n news, or just is his o w n news.

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B u t there is a component i n the automation story that is as basic as t a c t i l i t y t o the T V image. I t is the fact that, i n any automatic machine, or galaxy o f machines and functions, the generat i o n and transmission o f power is quite separate f r o m the w o r k operation that uses the power. T h e same is true i n all servomechanist structures that involve feedback. T h e source o f energy is separate f r o m the process o f translation of i n f o r m a t i o n , or the applying o f knowledge. T h i s is obvious i n the telegraph, where the energy and channel are quite independent of whether the w r i t t e n code is French or German. T h e same separation of p o w e r and process obtains i n automated industry, or i n " c y b e r n a t i o n . " T h e electric energy can be applied i n d i f f e r e n t l y and q u i c k l y t o many kinds o f tasks. Such was never the case i n the mechanical systems. T h e power and the w o r k done were always i n direct relation, whether i t was hand and hammer, water and wheel, horse and cart, o r steam and piston. E l e c t r i c i t y b r o u g h t a strange elasticity i n this matter, m u c h as l i g h t itself illuminates a t o t a l field and does n o t dictate what shall be done. T h e same l i g h t can make possible a m u l t i p l i c i t y o f tasks, just as w i t h electric power. L i g h t is a nonspecialist k i n d o f energy or p o w e r that is identical w i t h i n f o r m a t i o n and k n o w l edge. Such is also the relation o f electricity t o automation, since b o t h energy and i n f o r m a t i o n can be applied i n a great variety of ways. Grasp o f this fact is indispensable t o the understanding of the electronic age, and o f automation i n particular. E n e r g y and p r o duction n o w tend t o fuse w i t h i n f o r m a t i o n and learning. M a r k e t i n g and consumption tend to become one w i t h learning, enlightenment, and the intake o f i n f o r m a t i o n . T h i s is all part o f the electric implosion that n o w follows or succeeds the centuries o f explosion and increasing specialism. T h e electronic age is literally one o f illumination. Just as l i g h t is at once energy and i n f o r m a t i o n , so electric automation unites p r o d u c t i o n , consumption, and learning i n an inextricable process. F o r this reason, teachers are already the largest employee group i n the U.S. economy, and m a y w e l l become the only g r o u p . T h e v e r y same process o f automation that causes a w i t h -

Automation/351 drawal of the present w o r k force f r o m i n d u s t r y causes learning itself t o become the principal k i n d o f p r o d u c t i o n and consumpt i o n . Hence the f o l l y o f alarm about unemployment. Paid learning is already becoming b o t h the dominant employment and the source o f n e w wealth i n our society. T h i s is the n e w role f o r men i n society, whereas the older mechanistic idea o f "jobs," or f r a g mented tasks and specialist slots f o r " w o r k e r s , " becomes meaningless under automation. I t has often been said b y engineers that, as i n f o r m a t i o n levels rise, almost any sort o f material can be adapted t o any sort of use. T h i s principle is the k e y t o the understanding o f electric automat i o n . I n the case o f electricity, as energy f o r p r o d u c t i o n becomes independent of the w o r k operation, there is n o t o n l y the speed that makes f o r total and organic interplay, b u t there is, also, the fact that electricity is sheer i n f o r m a t i o n that, i n actual practice, illuminates all i t touches. A n y process that approaches instant interrelation of a total field tends t o raise itself t o the level o f conscious awareness, so that computers seem t o " t h i n k . " I n fact, t h e y are h i g h l y specialized at present, and quite lacking i n the f u l l process of interrelation that makes f o r consciousness. O b v i ously, they can be made t o simulate the process o f consciousness, just as our electric global networks n o w begin t o simulate the c o n d i t i o n of our central nervous system. B u t a conscious computer w o u l d still be one that was an extension o f our consciousness, as a telescope is an extension o f our eyes, or as a ventriloquist's d u m m y is an extension o f the ventriloquist. A u t o m a t i o n certainly assumes the servomechanism and the computer. T h a t is t o say, i t assumes electricity as store and expediter o f i n f o r m a t i o n . These traits of store, or " m e m o r y , " and accelerator are the basic features o f any m e d i u m o f communication whatever. I n the case o f electricity, i t is n o t corporeal substance that is stored or moved, b u t perception and i n f o r m a t i o n . A s f o r technological acceleration, i t n o w approaches the speed o f light. A l l nonelectric media had merely hastened things a b i t . T h e wheel, the road, the ship, the airplane, and even the space rocket are u t t e r l y lacking i n the character of instant movement. Is i t strange, then, that electricity should confer o n all previous human or-

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ganization a completely new character? T h e v e r y t o i l o f man n o w becomes a k i n d o f enlightenment. A s unfallen A d a m i n the Garden o f Eden was appointed the task o f the contemplation and naming o f creatures, so w i t h automation. W e have n o w o n l y t o name and p r o g r a m a process or a p r o d u c t i n order f o r i t t o be accomplished. Is i t n o t rather like the case o f A l Capp's Schmoos? One had o n l y t o l o o k at a Schmoo and t h i n k l o n g i n g l y o f p o r k chops or caviar, and the Schmoo ecstatically transformed itself i n t o the object o f desire. A u t o m a t i o n brings us i n t o the w o r l d o f the Schmoo. T h e custom-built supplants the mass-produced. L e t us, as the Chinese say, move our chairs closer t o the fire and see w h a t w e are saying. T h e electric changes associated w i t h automation have n o t h i n g t o do w i t h ideologies or social programs. I f t h e y had, t h e y could be delayed or controlled. I n stead, the technological extension o f our central nervous system that w e call the electric media began more than a century ago, subliminally. Subliminal have been the effects. Subliminal they remain. A t no period i n human culture have men understood the psychic mechanisms involved i n invention and technology. T o d a y i t is the instant speed o f electric i n f o r m a t i o n that, f o r the first time, permits easy recognition o f the patterns and the f o r m a l contours o f change and development. T h e entire w o r l d , past and present, n o w reveals itself t o us like a g r o w i n g plant i n an enormously accelerated movie. Electric speed is synonymous w i t h l i g h t and w i t h the understanding o f causes. So, w i t h the use o f elect r i c i t y i n previously mechanized situations, men easily discover causal connections and patterns that were quite unobservable at the slower rates of mechanical change. I f w e play backward the l o n g development o f literacy and p r i n t i n g and their effects o n social experience and organization, w e can easily see h o w these forms brought about that h i g h degree o f social u n i f o r m i t y and homogeneity o f society that is indispensable f o r mechanical i n dustry. Play them backward, and w e get just that shock o f u n familiarity i n the familiar that is necessary f o r the understanding o f the life of forms. E l e c t r i c i t y compels us t o play our mechanical development backward, f o r i t reverses m u c h o f that development. Mechanization depends on the breaking u p o f processes i n t o h o -

Automation/353 mogenized b u t unrelated bits. E l e c t r i c i t y unifies these fragments once more because its speed of operation requires a high degree of interdependence among all phases o f any operation. I t is this elect r i c speed-up and interdependence that has ended the assembly line i n industry. T h i s same need f o r organic interrelation, b r o u g h t i n b y the electric speed o f synchronization, n o w requires us t o p e r f o r m , i n d u s t r y - b y - i n d u s t r y , and c o u n t r y - b y - c o u n t r y , exactly the same organic interrelating that was first effected i n the individual automated unit. Electric speed requires organic structuring of the global economy quite as m u c h as early mechanization b y p r i n t and b y road led to the acceptance o f national u n i t y . L e t us n o t f o r g e t that nationalism was a m i g h t y invention and revolution that, i n the Renaissance, w i p e d o u t many o f the local regions and l o y a l ties. I t was a r e v o l u t i o n achieved almost entirely b y the speed-up o f i n f o r m a t i o n b y means o f u n i f o r m movable types. Nationalism c u t across most o f the traditional p o w e r and cultural groupings that had s l o w l y g r o w n u p i n various regions. Mutli-nationalisms had l o n g deprived Europe of its economic u n i t y . T h e C o m m o n M a r k e t came t o i t o n l y w i t h the Second W a r . W a r is accelerated social change, as an explosion is an accelerated chemical reaction and movement o f matter. W i t h electric speeds governing indust r y and social life, explosion i n the sense o f crash development becomes normal. O n the other hand, the old-fashioned k i n d o f " w a r " becomes as impracticable as p l a y i n g hopscotch w i t h b u l l dozers. Organic interdependence means that disruption o f any part o f the organism can prove fatal to the w h o l e . E v e r y i n d u s t r y has had t o " r e t h i n k t h r o u g h " (the awkwardness o f this phrase betrays the painfulness o f the process), f u n c t i o n b y f u n c t i o n , its place i n the economy. B u t automation forces n o t o n l y i n d u s t r y and t o w n planners, b u t government and even education, t o come i n t o some relation to social facts. T h e various m i l i t a r y branches have had t o come i n t o line w i t h automation v e r y q u i c k l y . T h e u n w i e l d y mechanical forms o f m i l i t a r y organization have gone. Small teams o f experts have replaced the citizen armies o f yesterday even faster than t h e y have taken over the reorganization o f industry. U n i f o r m l y

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trained and homogenized citizenry, so l o n g i n preparation and so necessary to a mechanized society, is becoming quite a burden and problem t o an automated society, f o r automation and elect r i c i t y require depth approaches i n all fields and at all times. Hence the sudden rejection o f standardized goods and scenery and l i v i n g and education i n A m e r i c a since the Second W a r . I t is a s w i t c h imposed b y electric technology i n general, and b y the T V image i n particular. A u t o m a t i o n was first f e l t and seen o n a large scale i n the chemical industries o f gas, coal, o i l , and metallic ores. T h e large changes i n these operations made possible b y electric energy have n o w , b y means of the computer, begun t o invade every k i n d o f white-collar and management area. M a n y people, i n c o n sequence, have begun t o l o o k o n the w h o l e of society as a single unified machine f o r creating wealth. Such has been the normal outlook of the stockbroker, manipulating shares and i n f o r m a t i o n w i t h the cooperation o f the electric media of press, radio, telephone, and teletype. B u t the peculiar and abstract manipulation o f i n f o r m a t i o n as a means o f creating wealth is no longer a m o n o p o l y o f the stockbroker. I t is n o w shared b y every engineer and b y the entire communications industries. W i t h electricity as energizer and synchronizer, all aspects of p r o d u c t i o n , consumption, and organization become incidental t o communications. T h e v e r y idea o f communication as interplay is inherent i n the electrical, w h i c h combines b o t h energy and i n f o r m a t i o n i n its intensive m a n i f o l d . A n y b o d y w h o begins to examine the patterns o f automation finds that perfecting the individual machine b y m a k i n g i t automatic involves "feedback." T h a t means i n t r o d u c i n g an i n f o r m a t i o n loop or circuit, where before there had been merely a one-way flow or mechanical sequence. Feedback is the end o f the lineality that came i n t o the W e s t e r n w o r l d w i t h the alphabet and the continuous forms o f Euclidean space. Feedback or dialogue between the mechanism and its environment brings a f u r t h e r weavi n g o f individual machines i n t o a galaxy o f such machines t h r o u g h out the entire plant. T h e r e f o l l o w s a still f u r t h e r weaving o f individual plants and factories i n t o the entire industrial matrix of

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materials and services o f a culture. N a t u r a l l y , this last stage encounters the entire w o r l d of policy, since t o deal w i t h the w h o l e industrial complex as an organic system affects employment, security, education, and politics, demanding f u l l understanding i n advance of c o m i n g structural change. T h e r e is no r o o m f o r witless assumptions and subliminal factors i n such electrical and instant organizations. As artists began a c e n t u r y ago t o construct their w o r k s backw a r d , starting with the effect, so n o w w i t h industry and planning. I n general, electric speed-up requires complete knowledge of ultimate effects. Mechanical speed-ups, however radical i n their reshaping o f personal and social life, still w e r e allowed t o happen sequentially. M e n could, f o r the most part, get t h r o u g h a n o r m a l life span o n the basis o f a single set o f skills. T h a t is n o t at all the case w i t h electric speed-up. T h e acquiring of n e w basic knowledge and skill b y senior executives i n middle age is one of the most c o m m o n needs and h a r r o w i n g facts of electric techn o l o g y . T h e senior executives, or " b i g wheels," as t h e y are archaically and i r o n i c a l l y designated, are among the hardest pressed and most persistently harassed groups i n human history. E l e c t r i c i t y has n o t o n l y demanded ever deeper knowledge and faster interplay, b u t has made the harmonizing of p r o d u c t i o n schedules as rigorous as that demanded o f the members o f a large s y m p h o n y orchestra. A n d the satisfactions are just as f e w f o r the b i g executives as f o r the symphonists, since a player i n a b i g orchestra can hear n o t h i n g o f the music that reaches the audience. H e gets o n l y noise. T h e result o f electric speed-up i n i n d u s t r y at large is the creation o f intense sensitivity t o the interrelation and interprocess o f the w h o l e , so as t o call f o r ever-new types of organization and talent. V i e w e d f r o m the o l d perspectives of the machine age, this electric n e t w o r k x>f plants and processes seems brittle and t i g h t . I n fact, i t is n o t mechanical, and i t does begin to develop the sensitivity and pliability of the human organism. B u t i t also demands the same varied nutriment and nursing as the animal organism. W i t h the instant and complex interprocesses of the organic

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f o r m , automated i n d u s t r y also acquires the power of adaptability t o multiple uses. A machine set u p f o r the automatic p r o d u c t i o n o f electric bulbs represents a combination o f processes that were previously managed b y several machines. W i t h a single attendant, i t can r u n as continuously as a tree i n its intake and output. But, unlike the tree, i t has a b u i l t - i n system o f jigs and fixtures that can be shifted t o cause the machine t o t u r n o u t a w h o l e range of products f r o m radio tubes and glass tumblers t o Christmas-tree ornaments. A l t h o u g h an automated plant is almost like a tree i n respect to the continuous intake and output, i t is a tree that can change f r o m oak t o maple to w a l n u t as required. I t is part of the automation or electric logic that specialism is no longer limited t o just one specialty. T h e automatic machine m a y w o r k i n a specialist w a y , b u t i t is n o t limited t o one line. As w i t h our hands and fingers that are capable o f many tasks, the automatic u n i t incorporates a p o w e r o f adaptation that was quite lacking i n the pre-electric and mechanical stage o f technology. A s anything becomes more complex, i t becomes less specialized. M a n is more complex and less specialized than a dinosaur. T h e older mechanical operations were designed t o be m o r e efficient as t h e y became larger and more specialized. T h e electric and automated unit, however, is quite otherwise. A n e w automatic machine f o r making automobile tailpipes is about the size o f t w o or three office desks. T h e computer c o n t r o l panel is the size o f a lectern. I t has i n i t no dies, no fixtures, no settings o f any k i n d , b u t rather certain general-purpose things like grippers, benders, and advancers. O n this machine, starting w i t h lengths o f o r d i n a r y pipe, i t is possible t o make eighty different kinds of tailpipe i n succession, as r a p i d l y , as easily, and as cheaply as i t is t o make eighty o f the same k i n d . A n d the characteristic o f electric automation is all i n this direct i o n o f r e t u r n t o the general-purpose handicraft flexibility that our o w n hands possess. T h e p r o g r a m m i n g can n o w include endless changes o f program. I t is the electric feedback, or dialogue pattern, o f the automatic and computer-programmed "machine" that marks i t off f r o m the older mechanical principle o f one-way movement. T h i s computer offers a model that has the characteristics

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shared b y all automation. F r o m the p o i n t o f intake o f materials t o the output o f the finished p r o d u c t , the operations tend t o be independently, as w e l l as interdependently, automatic. T h e s y n chronized concert o f operations is under the c o n t r o l o f gauges and instruments that can be varied f r o m the control-panel boards that are themselves electronic. T h e material o f intake is relatively u n i f o r m i n shape, size, and chemical properties, as likewise the material of the output. B u t the processing under these conditions permits use of the highest level o f capacity f o r any needed period. I t is, as compared w i t h the older machines, the difference between an oboe i n an orchestra and the same tone o n an electronic music instrument. W i t h the electronic music instrument, any tone can be made available i n any intensity and f o r any length o f time. N o t e that the older s y m p h o n y orchestra was, b y comparison, a machine o f separate instruments that gave the effect of organic unity. W i t h the electronic instrument, one starts w i t h organic u n i t y as an immediate fact o f perfect synchronization. T h i s makes the attempt t o create the effect of organic u n i t y quite pointless. Electronic music must seek other goals. Such is also the harsh logic o f industrial automation. A l l that w e had previously achieved mechanically b y great exertion and coordination can n o w be done electrically w i t h o u t effort. Hence the specter of joblessness and propertylessness i n the electric age. W e a l t h and w o r k become i n f o r m a t i o n factors, and t o t a l l y n e w structures are needed t o r u n a business or relate i t t o social needs and markets. W i t h the electric technology, the n e w kinds of i n stant interdependence and interprocess that take over p r o d u c t i o n also enter the market and social organizations. F o r this reason, markets and education designed to cope w i t h the products o f servile t o i l and mechanical p r o d u c t i o n are no longer adequate. O u r education has l o n g ago acquired the fragmentary and piecemeal character o f mechanism. I t is n o w under increasing pressure t o acquire the depth and interrelation that are indispensable i n the all-at-once w o r l d of electric organization. Paradoxically, automation makes liberal education mandatory. T h e electric age of servomechanisms suddenly releases m e n f r o m the mechanical and specialist servitude o f the preceding machine

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age. A s the machine and the motorcar released the horse and projected i t onto the plane o f entertainment, so does automation w i t h men. W e are suddenly threatened w i t h a liberation that taxes our inner resources o f self-employment and imaginative participat i o n i n society. T h i s w o u l d seem t o be a fate that calls men to the role o f artist i n society. I t has the effect o f m a k i n g most people realize h o w m u c h they had come t o depend o n the f r a g mentalized and repetitive routines o f the mechanical era. T h o u sands of years ago man, the nomadic food-gatherer, had taken up positional, or relatively sedentary, tasks. H e began t o specialize. T h e development o f w r i t i n g and p r i n t i n g were major stages o f that process. T h e y were supremely specialist i n separating the roles o f knowledge f r o m the roles of action, even t h o u g h at times i t could appear that "the pen is mightier than the s w o r d . " B u t w i t h electricity and automation, the technology o f f r a g mented processes suddenly fused w i t h the human dialogue and the need f o r over-all consideration o f human u n i t y . M e n are suddenly nomadic gatherers o f knowledge, nomadic as never before, i n f o r m e d as never before, free f r o m fragmentary specialism as never before—but also i n v o l v e d i n the total social process as never before; since w i t h electricity w e extend our central nervous system globally, instantly interrelating every human experience. L o n g accustomed t o such a state i n stock-market news or front-page sensations, w e can grasp the meaning of this new dimension more readily w h e n i t is pointed out that i t is possible to " f l y " u n b u i l t airplanes o n computers. T h e specifications o f a plane can be programmed and the plane tested under a variety o f extreme conditions before i t has l e f t the d r a f t i n g board. So w i t h new products and new organizations o f many kinds. W e can n o w , b y computer, deal w i t h complex social needs w i t h the same architectural certainty that w e previously attempted i n private housing. I n d u s t r y as a w h o l e has become the u n i t o f reckoning, and so w i t h society, politics, and education as wholes. Electric means o f storing and m o v i n g i n f o r m a t i o n w i t h speed and precision make the largest units quite as manageable as small ones. T h u s the automation o f a plant or o f an entire industry offers a small model o f the changes that must occur i n

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society f r o m the same electric technology. T o t a l interdependence is the starting fact. Nevertheless, the range o f choice i n design, stress, and goal w i t h i n that total field o f electromagnetic interprocess is v e r y m u c h greater than i t ever c o u l d have been under mechanization. Since electric energy is independent o f the place or k i n d of w o r k - o p e r a t i o n , i t creates patterns of decentralism and diversity i n the w o r k t o be done. T h i s is a logic that appears plainly enough i n the difference between firelight and electric light, f o r example. Persons grouped around a fire or candle f o r w a r m t h or light are less able to pursue independent thoughts, or even tasks, than people supplied w i t h electric light. I n the same w a y , the social and educational patterns latent i n automation are those o f self-emp l o y m e n t and artistic autonomy. Panic about automation as a threat o f u n i f o r m i t y o n a w o r l d scale is the projection into the f u t u r e of mechanical standardization and specialism, w h i c h are n o w past.

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Anshen, R. N . : Language: An Inquiry into Its Meaning and Function, Science of Culture Series, v o l . I l l ( N e w Y o r k : Harper & R o w , Publishers, I n c o r p o rated, 1957). Barnouw, E r i k : Mass Communication ( N e w Y o r k : H o l t , Rinehart and W i n ston, Inc., 1956). Bedini, S. A . : The Scent of Time, Archaeological treatise (Philadelphia: A m e r ican Philosophical Society, 1963). Bekesy, Georg V o n : Experiments in Hearing, ed. and trans, b y E. G . W e v e r ( N e w Y o r k : M c G r a w - H i l l Book Company, 1960). Bernard, Claude: The Study of Experimental Medicine, T h e classic p r o t o t y p e explaining the technique of isolat i o n of organs t o observe the effect on other organs. ( N e w Y o r k : Dover Publications, Inc., 1957). (Also a C o l lier paperback.) Boulding, Kenneth E.: The Image, ( A n n

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A r b o r , M i c h . : A n n A r b o r Paperbacks, U n i v e r s i t y o f M i c h i gan Press, 1961). B r o w n , N o r m a n O . : Life against Death, T e c h n o l o g y as neurotic sublimation and alienation of the b o d y . ( N e w Y o r k : Vintage Books, Random House, I n c . ) Buhler, C u r t : The Fifteenth Century Book (Philadelphia: U n i versity of Pennsylvania Press, 1960). Capek, A4ilic: The Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics, T h e cultural block of visual habit as an impediment t o understanding physics i n the Western w o r l d . (Princeton, N . J . : D . V a n Nostrand Company, Inc., 1961.) Carothers, J. C : " C u l t u r e , Psychiatry and the W r i t t e n W o r d , " Psychiatry, November, 1959. Carpenter, E. S.: Eskimo, Identical w i t h Explorations, N o . 9 ( T o r onto, Canada: U n i v e r s i t y of T o r o n t o Press, 1960). Chaytor, H . J.: From Script to Print (Cambridge, England: W . ' H e i f e r & Sons, L t d . , 1945). Cherry, C o l i n : On Human Communication, A n electrical engineer discussing entire range of media. ( N e w Y o r k : Science Editions, John W i l e y & Sons, I n c . ) Dantzig, Tobias: Number, the Language of Science, T h e extension o f t o u c h as manifested i n the history of culture. (Garden C i t y , N . Y . : A n c h o r Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1954.) Deutsch, K a r l : The Nerves of Government, A structuralist study of Models i n present day organization. ( N e w Y o r k : T h e Free Press of Glencoe, 1963.) Diringer, D a v i d : The Alphabet ( N e w Y o r k : Philosophical L i brary, Inc., 1948). D o o b , Leonard W . : Communication in Africa ( N e w Haven, Conn.: Yale U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1961). Dorner, Alexander: Way Beyond Art, A p p r o a c h t o non-visual spaces i n the history of culture. ( N e w Y o r k : George W i t t e n ¬ born, Inc., 1947.) ( N o w available i n paperback.) Doxiadis, C. A . : Architecture in Transition, A comprehensive Greek approach t o w o r l d housing and c i t y design. ( L o n d o n : H u t c h i n s o n & Co., Publishers, 1963.)

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Dudek, Louis: Literature and the Press ( T o r o n t o : T h e Ryerson Press, 1960). Duncan, H u g h D . : Communication and Social Order ( N e w Y o r k : T h e Bedminster Press, 1962). D u n l o p , J. T . : Automation and Technological Change, A collect i o n o f essays concerning the present state of ignorance about the effects o f automation. ( E n g l e w o o d Cliffs, N . J . : PrenticeH a l l , Inc.) Ehrenzweig, A n t o n : Psychoanalysis of Artistic Vision and Hear¬ ing: The Dissociation of Sensibility since the Renaissance. ( L o n d o n : Routledge & Kegan Paul, L t d . , 1953.) Fuller, R. Buckminster: Education Automation (Carbondale, 111.: Southern Illinois U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1961). Giedion, Siegfried: Mechanization Takes Command, A n approach t o technology as culture—analysis i n depth. A training o f perception i n culture and technology. (Fair L a w n , N . J . : O x f o r d University Press, 1948.) G o m b r i c h , E. H . : Art and Illusion, A discovery o f integral awareness amidst art illusions based on isolated visual sense. ( N e w Y o r k : Pantheon Books, a Division o f Random House, Inc., 1960.) Hadas, Moses: Ancilla to Classical Learning ( N e w York: Columbia U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1954). H a l l , E. T . : The Silent Language (Garden C i t y , N . Y . : Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1959). Havelock, E. A . : Preface to Plato (Cambridge, Mass.: H a r v a r d University Press, 1963). Heisenberg, W e r n e r : The Psychisfs Concept of Nature, C o n temporary physics finds m u c h that is congenial i n archaid science. ( L o n d o n : H u t c h i n s o n & Company, Publishers, L t d . , 1958.) Huizinga, Johan: Homo Ludens, A study of the play element i n culture. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.) Innis, H . A . : The Bias of Communication, A pioneer w o r k i n exp l o r i n g the psychic and social consequences of the extensions of man. ( T o r o n t o , Canada: U n i v e r s i t y o f T o r o n t o Press, 1951.)

364/Understanding

Media

: Empire and Communications ( L o n d o n : O x f o r d University Press, 1950). Ivins, W i l l i a m , Jr.: Art and Geometry: A Study in Space Intuitions, T h e Greeks d i d not succeed i n separating visual space f r o m the tactile and kinetic spaces. (Cambridge, Mass.: H a r vard U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1946.) (Also a Dover paperback.) Johnston, Angus James: V i r g i n i a Railroads i n the C i v i l W a r (Chapel H i l l , N . C . : U n i v e r s i t y o f N o r t h Carolina Press, 1961). Mandler, George, and W i l l i a m Kessen: The Language of Psychology, M o d e l attempt to create a grammar of science. ( N e w Y o r k : John W i l e y & Sons, Inc., 1959.) (Also available i n paperback.) M u m f o r d , Lewis: Technics and Civilization, T h e interplay of artefact and culture. ( N e w Y o r k : H a r c o u r t , Brace & W o r l d , Inc., 1963.) Opie, Iona and Pater: Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (London: O x f o r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1959). Pierce, J. R.: Symbols, Signals and Noise ( N e w Y o r k : H a r p e r & R o w , Publishers, Incorporated, 1961). Polanyi, K a r l : The Great Transformation, T h e struggle t o disengage economic structures f r o m the N e w t o n i a n universe. ( N e w Y o r k : Farrar, Straus & Co., 1944.) (Also Beacon paperback, 1957.) Poulet, Georges: Studies in Human Time, Changing concepts of time as creating new models of awareness i n art and science. Baltimore: T h e Johns H o p k i n s Press, 1956.) (Also a T o r c h paperback, 1959.) Riesman, D a v i d J., w i t h Reuel D e n n y and Nathan Glazer: The Lonely Crowd ( N e w Haven, Conn.: Yale U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1950). Selye, Hans: The Stress of Life, " T h e pharmacology o f d i r t " or an ecological approach t o human stress. ( N e w Y o r k : M c G r a w H i l l Book Company, 1956.) Siebert, F. S.: Freedom of the Press in England 1476-1776: The Rise and Decline of Government Controls (Urbana, 111.: U n i versity of Illinois Press, 1952).

Further

Readings

for

Media

Study/365

Usher, A . P.: The History of Mechanical Inventions, A nonarchaeological approach revealing cultural background and interrelating seemingly isolated inventions. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959.) W h i t e , L y n n : Medieval Technology and Social Change (Fair L a w n , N . J . : O x f o r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1962). Y o u n g , J. Z.: Doubt and Certainty in Science, A v i e w o f the central nervous system as a new model f o r understanding electric technology. ( L o n d o n : O x f o r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1961.)

AbOIlt thO Anf-hn AUintjr

Marshall M c L u h a n was b o r n i n E d m o n t o n , Alberta, Canada, and studied at Manitoba U n i v e r s i t y and Cambridge U n i v e r s i t y , where he received his P h . D . i n English Literature. H e has taught at the U n i v e r s i t y of Wisconsin, the U n i v e r s i t y o f St. Louis and Assumption U n i v e r s i t y and St. Michael's College, U n i v e r s i t y o f T o r o n t o , where he is n o w the D i r e c t o r of the Center f o r Culture and T e c h n o l o g y . T h i s center i n vestigates the psychic and social consequences o f technological media, w h i c h study is the subject o f this book. Besides c o n t r i b u t i n g t o many literary magazines, M r . M c L u h a n has w r i t t e n The Mechanical Bride and The Gutenberg Galaxy.